If there are an estimated 200,000 "illegal" abortions per year now, it will be interesting to see if the number of "legal" abortions jumps.
Mexico City expected to legalize abortion POSTED: 11:56 a.m. EDT, April 24, 2007
Story Highlights• Mexico City lawmakers expected to approve abortion measure easily Tuesday
• Mexico City would legalize abortion in all cases during first 12 weeks of pregnancy
• In Latin America, abortion is legal for all women only in Cuba and Guyana
• Mexico City's move may have impact throughout heavily Roman Catholic region
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico City lawmakers were voting to legalize abortion Tuesday after weeks of candlelight vigils, marches and dueling appeals from the Vatican and reproductive rights groups around the world.
The proposal -- which would take effect with the leftist mayor's signature -- has alarmed Mexico's conservative ruling party. It likely will influence government policies and women's health practices across Mexico and in other parts of heavily Roman Catholic Latin America, and give poor women seeking abortions an alternative to back alleys and folk practices.
Nationally, Mexico allows abortion only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or if the mother's life is at risk. Mexico City's leftist government would legalize it in all cases during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The city legislature -- dominated by leftist lawmakers -- was expected to easily approve the measure Tuesday.
Opponents have pledged a Supreme Court appeal, arguing that life begins at conception and the law would violate the Mexican Constitution's protection of individual rights.
Across Latin America, abortion is legal for all women only in Cuba and Guyana. Most countries allow it only in cases of rape or when the mother's life is at risk. Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile ban it completely.
"This will serve as a model to get abortion accepted nationwide, but also in Latin America and the Caribbean, where women who interrupt their pregnancies are still sent to jail," said Elba Garcia, 24, riding atop a flatbed truck in an abortion rights caravan Monday.
"Legal abortion is a fundamental right," supporters on the balloon-decked trucks chanted over loudspeakers.
The convoy passed by the street corner where sociologist Bernardo Lopez, 46, and three other anti-abortion advocates have fasted since Sunday trying to change the minds of city legislators.
"The Mexican people have strong values, and fundamentally support life," Lopez said as the caravan passed by. "We don't want this to become an example for other states, so we are going to continue fighting by all means."
But recent newspaper polls showed that a majority of Mexico City residents support legalized abortions, at least in the first weeks of pregnancy.
President Felipe Calderon opposes the proposal, and the Vatican sent its top anti-abortion campaigner to the Mexican capital. Church leaders have led marches and protests, pushing the limits of Mexico's constitutional ban on political activity by religious groups.
Armando Martinez, president of the College of Catholic Lawyers, plans to pursue the court appeal. He also submitted a petition Monday, signed by 36,000 people, calling for a city referendum on abortion.
The city and its suburbs are home to about one-fifth of the country's population, and Mexicans already are accustomed to traveling to the capital for medical treatment. Martinez said the law "could act as a magnet" for women from across Mexico seeking abortions.
An estimated 200,000 women have illegal abortions each year in Mexico, based on the number who show up at hospitals later seeking treatment for complications, said Martha Micher, director of the Mexico City government's Women's Institute.
Botched abortions kill about 1,500 women each year and are the third-leading cause of death for pregnant women in the capital, Micher said.
"Of those that die, most are young and poor," Micher said; more wealthy women "go to clinics abroad, where nobody knows them ... and have safe abortions."
None of the arguments put forward by the bill's supporters convince Elena Velasco, a 30-year-old lawyer who passed out anti-abortion leaflets before the vote.
"There should be better campaigns for the use of contraceptives, before we go to the lengths of legalizing abortion," Velasco said. "I see it as the murder of a young life in the making."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/04/24/mexico.abortion.ap/index.html
