Thousands march in defense of life in Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 27, 2007 / 11:01 am

More than five thousand people marched through the streets of Mexico City to the Basilica of Guadalupe to express their commitment to the defense of life, especially of the unborn, who are being threatened by an anti-life proposal that would legalize abortion on demand up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.

“Abortion No, Life Yes,” was one of the themes of the march, which brought together thousands in a peaceful demonstration that provided little interruption of traffic flow in the city.

The march was led by the president of the National Union of Parents, Guillermo Bustamante, and by Father Agustin Rivera of the Basilica of Guadalupe.  “This march has no partisan slant either in favor or against anyone, only in favor of life,” he said.

Members of the College of Catholic Lawyers of Mexico and members of the Order of Malta, as well as numerous religious, also participated in the march and joined thousands of families in voicing their support for life from conception to natural death.

Cardinal Rivera: society pressures women to abort

Before some 10,000 faithful—double the number that participated in the march—gathered in the atrium of the Basilica of Guadalupe, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City criticized those who seek to legalize abortion and said they are disguising it as if it were a question of health and poverty, instead of one of life and death.

Instead of helping women, he said, society is pressuring them to end the life they carry in their wombs.  “Women find themselves in the terrible dilemma of carrying a difficult pregnancy to term under a dark cloud of loneliness or with the sorrow of a deformed child which she carries in her womb,” the Cardinal stated.

“These women are pushed into choosing to throw their children away to be left with the terrible pain of having ended the life that was living inside them,” he lamented.