Mexico City, Mexico, Jan 8, 2007 / 12:50 pm
The Mexican pro-abortion organization “Group for Information on Elective Reproduction” has launched a campaign backed by various feminist organizations to legalize abortion in the country by federalizing Mexico’s most liberal state laws.
The organization has sent a proposal to Mexico’s House of Representatives that would make the permissive laws on abortion in such states as Hidalgo, Yucatan, and Baja California applicable throughout the country through a reform of the Federal Penal Code - thus going over the heads of state legislatures.
The proposal would legalize abortion in all 32 Mexican states in cases of rape, “imprudence”—that is, when a woman gets pregnant after failing to use contraception—threat to the life of the mother, congenital deformation, threat to the health of the mother, artificial insemination without consent, and economic hardship. In other words, it would allow abortion on demand for any reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
In an explanatory note that is part of the proposal, the Group argues that the “current state of laws on abortion has led to a lack legal certainty and security, both for women as well as for health care workers.”