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MEXICO CITY, September 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A proposed decision to overturn a state right-to-life constitutional amendment in the Mexican Supreme Court has failed today, as the tally of votes against the decision reached four out of the eleven justices. The court still has to make its final decision on a second such verdict about another pro-life state constitutional amendment, although that decision is expected to go the same way.

According to the Mexican Constitution, the Supreme Court must have a supermajority of at least eight of the eleven justices, called “ministers” in Spanish, in order to overturn a law; with four votes now definitely against the verdict, obtaining such a supermajority would be impossible.

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The decisive vote in the first of the two cases, which have been dubbed the “Roe v. Wade of Mexico,” was made by Minister Jorge Pardo. Pardo observed that the rights of the unborn have long been recognized in Mexican federal law, and that the right-to-life amendment of the state of Baja California is not in conflict with the nation’s Constitution.

“The federal entities (the states and the nation’s capital) in use of their liberty of (self) determination can establish this starting point of the right to life,” said Pardo.

Pardo clarified that he regarded the penalization of abortion as a separate issue.

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After the remaining two ministers express their opinions on the proposal, they will pass to a second decision over the right-to-life amendment of the state of San Luis Potosí.

Both amendments protect the right to life from the moment of conception, although the San Luis Potosí amendment makes the right to life the foundation of all human rights.

The Baja California amendment declares, “from the moment an individual is conceived, it comes under the protection of the law and is understood as one who is born for all corresponding legal effects, until his natural or non-induced death.”

The San Luis Potosí amendment states that “the State of San Luis Potosí recognizes life as the foundation of all human rights, for which reason it respects and protects it from the moment of its beginning in conception. The death penalty is prohibited, and cannot be applied in any situation.”