---

Mexico Succumbs to International Pressure to Provide Abortions in Public Hospitals

Mexican pro-lifers take to streets in protest

MEXICO CITY, March 11, 2009 (LifeSIteNews.com) - Mexican health officials have acceded to the demands of international pro-abortion organizations to require public hospitals to provide abortions in cases of rape.

Abortion is not penalized in cases of rape in most Mexican states. However, because of the high value placed on the sanctity of human life in Mexican culture, such abortions rarely occur in practice.

Following protests led in Mexico City and Spain by the pro-abortion "human rights" group Amnesty International, Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba Villalobos has agreed to modify Official Norm 046 to force hospitals to do the abortions.

The proposed norm previously stated that doctors were permitted to carry out the procedure, but did not require it (see previous LifeSiteNews coverage at http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09021609.html).

Mexico's National Pro-Life Committee issued a statement on Monday condemning Cordoba Villalobos as a "traitor to life."  The health secretary is a member of the National Action Party, which has a generally pro-life stance on abortion.

The Committee is demanding "the removal of Dr. Jose Angel Cordoba Villalobos, Secretary of Health, for betraying the lives of the recently conceived, his obligation as a doctor, and the National Action Party."  It is also demanding that Mexican President Felipe Calderon prohibit the publication of the norm.

In Leon, Guanajuato, hundreds of people marched through the streets to protest the changes to Norm 046, carrying banners and placards with pro-life slogans.  They were led by the Citizen's Coalition for Family and Life (COFAVI), and joined by local politicians and their relatives.

Beatriz Rodriguez, director of COFAVI, said that the modified Norm 046 is "designed with particular ideologies against life and family" and "created only by radical feminist organizations."

"We should promote consciousness, that's the most important thing," one marcher told the newspaper Milenio.  "It is a human being that lives, it is conception that matters."

Contact Information:

Embassy of Mexico in the United States
1911 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington DC 20006
USA
Telephone: (202) 7281600
Email: http://portal.sre.gob.mx/usa/index.php?option=contact&Itemid=6

Embassy of Mexico in Canada
45 O'Connor St. Suite 1000
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1P 1A4
Tel: (613) 233-8988
Fax: (613) 235-9123
Email:

Embassy of Mexico in the United Kingdom
16 St George Street Hanover Square
London W1S 1FD
United Kingdom
Telephone: (+44) 20 7499 8586
Fax: (+44) 20 7495 4035
Email: http://portal.sre.gob.mx/reinounidoeng/index.php?option=contact&Itemid=6

Embassies of Mexico in other countries:
http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/mexico1.html
http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/mexico4.html

 Back to Top

---

MORE NEWS: LifeSiteNews.com Home Page  Last 10 Days   Archives   Special Reports

Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.