Pro-Choice in Mexico

Thank you to Letha Dawson Scanzoni for sending me this news item on a pro-choice victory in Mexico City (el Distrito Federal) from the Christian Science Monitor, August 29.

"Mexico's Supreme Court upholds abortion law" by Sara Miller Liana at www.csmonitor.com

Summary: "The controversial case has been watched closely by the rest of the country, and may push other states to liberalize their own abortion laws."

"In a strong reaffirmation of one of the hemisphere's most lenient abortion laws, Mexico's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld legal abortion in the nation's capital," the article begins.

"To affirm that there is an absolute constitutional protection of life in gestation would lead to the violation of the fundamental rights of women," said Justice Sergio Valls.

This case has been watched closely by the rest of the country, notes the reporter, Both supporters and opponents say they believe this law will push other states to liberalize their own abortion laws.

It allows doctors to terminate pregnancy in the first three months under any conditions, but physicians who are morally opposed abortion are not required to perform the procedure.

In the rest of Mexico, abortions in the first trimester are currently only permitted in certain cases, including rape or if the mother's life is in danger.
Since taking effect, some 12,000 women have terminated their pregnancies in public hospitals in Mexico City, according to city statistics. Twenty percent of them are residents from outside the capital.

Conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderón is not directly involved in the case. But his government, via the nation's attorney general's office and the National Human Rights ombudsman, challenged the Mexico City decision – saying that health laws should not be the domain of the local assembly.

The justices voted 8 to 3 to uphold the April ruling. To do so, eight of 11 justices would have needed to vote in favor of its unconstitutionality.
Of course, antiabortion groups were outraged.

The law has sparked outcry in the second-largest Catholic country in the world.
"This is very grave for our country," says Jorge Serrano Limón, the head of Provida, an antiabortion group that has been protesting abortion outside public institutions this week. "We are creating a culture of death. We have failed as a society."
Mexico City's law is one of the most liberal laws in Latin America. "This is going to promote abortion in other states. Instead of 12,000 deaths in a year, we'll see 25,000," he says.

And because a fifth of the women who have received abortions in Mexico City since the law passed have come from outside the capital, he says this is an imposition of the personal interests of judges and legislators.

Mejía says that the opponents' argument that the judges and local assembly have imposed their will on the population is a political argument.
Instead, she says, the law is intended to equalize Mexican society overall. "The reality is, women who have resources have the possibility to have abortions. Women who are poor don't have that possibility. That was one of the major points the assembly made when discussing this," she says. "It is a social justice issue."

Find this article at: www.csmonitor.com