Court battle looms as Mexico City legalises abortion

MEXICO CITY lawmakers voted to legalise abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, a landmark decision likely to heighten church-state tensions in the Roman Catholic nation and lead to a bitter court battle.

Abortion rights advocates said they hoped the vote would be the start of a new trend across Mexico and other parts of Latin America, where only Cuba and Guyana permit women to have abortions on demand in the first trimester.

Most other Latin American countries allow it only in cases of rape or when the woman’s life is at risk.

Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile ban it completely.

But the debate in Mexico, the world’s second largest Roman Catholic country, appeared far from over.

Opponents vowed to challenge the law before the Supreme Court, saying it violates individual rights.

The church has played a vocal role in opposing the measure, a position shared by President Felipe Calder-on’s conservative National Action Party.

Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera led a protest march through the capital last month, pushing the limits of Mexico’s constitutional ban on political activity by religious groups.

The bill, approved 46 to 19, with one abstention, will take effect with the expected signing by the city’s leftist mayor. The new law will require city hospitals to provide the procedure in the first trimester and opens the way for private abortion clinics. Girls under 18 will have to get their parents’ consent.

The procedure will be almost free for poor or uninsured city residents.

Mexico City is a federal district similar to Washington DC, with its own legislature. Opponents fear the law will attract women across Mexico seeking abortions.

Mexico has allowed abortion only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or risk to the woman’s life. Doctors have sometimes refused to perform the procedure even under those circumstances.

Under the new law, women having an abortion after 12 weeks face three to six months in jail. Those performing abortions after that period will face one to three years in jail.

A crowd of abortion rights supporters chanting “Yes, we did it!” gathered at a monument to 19th-century anti-clerical reformer Benito Juarez in downtown Mexico City after the vote.

“I feel happy, because this is a step forward, not backward, for a woman’s right and freedom to choose... about her body and her life,” said demonstrator Gabriela Cruz, 36.