Mexican states with pro-life constitutions now at 16

Mexico City, Mexico, Sep 11, 2009 / 15:25 pm

The State Congress of Oaxaca has passed a constitutional reform making it the 16th Mexican state to protect human life from abortion. The reform guarantees that human life will be protected from conception to natural death.

A press release from the Congress indicated 31 votes in favor of the changes to the State constitution granting legal protection to the unborn. “The inhabitants of the State shall enjoy all of the rights and freedoms enshrined in this Constitution, without distinction of origin, race, color, sex, language, creed, public opinion, social condition or position,” the new text reads.

State representatives said that the new measure is intended to strengthen the family, where respect for life begins. Without respect for the fundamental right to life, they said, “the rest of individual rights could not exist.” The dignity of the human person shall be defended, especially that of the women and children of Oaxaca, they continued, as “with the new constitutional norms the rights of the mother and the unborn are not in conflict, nor is one place above the other. Both complement each other,” they stressed.

The reform allows abortion in cases of rape, life of the mother or fetal deformation.

The other 15 states that have passed pro-life reform are: Querétaro, Baja California, Chihuahua, Campeche, Colima , Puebla, Durango, Jalisco, Nayarit, Quintana Roo, Guanajuato, Yucatán, Sonora, Morelos and San Luis Potosí.