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Pro-Abortion Forces Sue to Overturn State Pro-Life Amendment in Mexican Supreme Court

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

MEXICO CITY, January 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Mexican Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought against a pro-life constitutional amendment recently passed by the state of Baja California.

The amendment, created in response to attempts by Mexican socialists to legalize abortion on demand nationwide, states that "from the moment in which an individual is conceived, he enters under the protection of the law, and is treated as a born person for all corresponding legal effects, until his natural or non-induced death."

The suit against the amendment is being brought by the president of the state's Human Rights Commission, Francisco Javier Sanchez, who reportedly claims that it violates several articles of the Mexican Constitution, and impedes the freedom of women to use contraceptives. The second complaint represents a rare public admission by pro-abortion forces that chemical contraceptives, such as the "pill," often take the lives of unborn children at the earliest stage of conception by preventing already fertilized embryos from implanting.

Sanchez is also reportedly asserting that imposing criminal penalties on women who procure abortions in cases of rape or incest violates their human rights. 

The modification of Baja California's constitution received support from a variety of political parties, including the liberal Institutional Revolutionary Party, the Green Ecologist Party, and the conservative National Action Party. It was passed in October of last year.

The state of Sonora passed a similar amendment that same month protecting human life from fertilization, and recently the state of Colima voted down an attempt to legalize abortion on demand during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.

Individual members of Mexican socialist political parties, including the Party of the Democratic Revolution and the Social Democratic Party, have been spearheading legislative initiatives to legalize abortion on demand throughout Mexico's 31 states since achieving the same reform in Mexico City in 2007.

However, their attempts have been opposed even by liberal politicians and members of their own parties, who have reacted by supporting measures to clarify existing prohibitions on abortion.

State law uniformly prohibits abortion outside of Mexico City, with varying exceptions for rape, incest, and fetal deformity.  Procedures that result in the death of an unborn child but are performed to save the mother's life are legal throughout Mexico.

Related LifeSiteNews coverage:

Mexican State of Colima Rejects Legalization of Abortion 19-1
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09012902.html

Mexican State of Sonora Passes Pro-Life Constitutional Amendment
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08102213.html

Mexican State Legislators Seek to Define Personhood as Being from Conception
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08072311.html

Legislators Seek Abortion-on-Demand for Every State in Mexico
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08100603.html

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