Mexico City, Mexico, Oct 23, 2008 / 10:34 am
By a vote of 27-5, the Sonora State Congress in Mexico amended the state’s constitution and enshrined protection of human life from conception to natural death, closing the door to legal efforts to expand abortion.
“The State of Sonora protects the right to life by upholding that from the moment of fertilization an individual is under the protection of the law and is considered born with all corresponding legal effects, until natural death,” the new section of the constitution reads. However, it upholds impunity for abortion in cases of rape or life of the mother, “based on the judgment of the assisting doctor, who should also solicit the opinion of another doctor.”
Speaking to reporters, State Representative Edmundo Garcia Pavlovich said lawmakers “are showing our support for life, and we condemn any attack on it, protecting the life of human beings from the very moment of fertilization.”
Sonora now becomes the second Mexican state to enshrine protection of the unborn in its constitution. The first state to amend its constitution was Chihuahua.