More than 100,000 ask Mexican Supreme Court to affirm right to life

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 30, 2015 / 23:38 pm

More than 120,000 people have signed a petition asking the Mexican Supreme Judicial Court of the Nation to reaffirm that "abortion is not a right."

The petition campaign was sparked by a lawsuit over the constitutionality of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala's abortion reform law which could open the door to abortion in the whole country.

The pro-life organization CitizenGo, which launched the petition drive, will send the signatures to Luis Maria Aguilar Morales, president of the Mexican Supreme Court; Supreme Court Associate Justice José Fernando Franco González Salas who is presenting the case for the law's unconstitutionality, and Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico. CNN reported that in 2011, González Salas unsuccessfully petitioned the court to overturn pro-life laws in the Mexican states of Baja California and San Luis Potosi.

A letter sent along with the signatures points out that the case on Mexican Supreme Court's schedule will be dealing with the unconstitutionality of the abortion laws in the state of Tlaxcala and that their ruling would be obligatory for all the country's judges.

"Declaring the law unconstitutional would entail a grave violation of the first of all rights, the right to life and would be contrary to international treaties," CitizenGo warned.

The petition acknowledged that the court is "debating the exceptions in the penal code for abortion in the state of Tlaxcala."

"Nevertheless, if eight associate judges vote to declare Tlaxcala's law unconstitutional, the immediate effect would be to invalidate Tlaxcala's abortion reform law, and the secondary effect would be that the court's ruling would be obligatory for all the judges in the country. As a result, in every state any person could have an abortion by means of appealing for constitutional judicial relief from the penal code."

As a result, "(t)he judges would be obliged to grant judicial relief, and nothing would protect the unborn child."

The more than 120,000 signers of the petition reminded the court that "the right to life from conception is recognized in the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights (ICCPR) of which Mexico is a signatory."

Additionally, the U.N. Convention of the Rights of the Child establishes the child's right to protection – in the ninth paragraph of the preamble, it is established that every minor holds the right to have his life protected, including before birth. In Article 6, paragraph 1, it says that every child intrinsically has the right to life.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child further emphasizes that "the unborn child from the moment he is conceived must come under the protection of the law. If someone attacks a pregnant woman and she loses the child, the aggressor is punishable for the injuries to the woman and the death of the baby."

Based on these legal precedents, the signers of the Mexican petition called on the court to affirm the right to life as it makes its decision in the Tlaxcala case.

"Respect our legal tradition, our constitutional accords, the international treaties that Mexico has signed and our principles and values as a nation," they demanded, emphasizing that "the right to abortion does not exist."