MEXICO CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Approximately 25,000 pro-lifers took part in Mexico City’s March for Life on Saturday to call for an end to abortion, according to the event’s organizer Pasos por la Vida (Steps for Life).
Footage of the march shared on social media indicates a relaxed yet buoyant atmosphere as participants of all ages and walks of life, from families with young children to Catholic nuns, waved Catholic and Mexican flags and held up pro-life banners as they occupied the streets on behalf of the preborn.
The large protest was held within a few days of the 16-year anniversary of abortion becoming decriminalized in Mexico, which is increasingly a destination for abortion-seeking women in the U.S. after the overthrow of Roe v. Wade last year.
México, date cuenta 🚨📢El aborto ha ido en aumento los últimos años. Este 29 de abril alzaremos la voz por para que se proteja la vida de todos desde el primer momento. ¿Ya sabes con quién vas a venir?
🗓️ Sábado 29 de abril
🕛10:30 AM
📍 Monumento a la revolución pic.twitter.com/eaYvS5S20a— Pasos por la Vida (@pasosxlavida) March 15, 2023
In a press release cited by Catholic News Agency (CNA)’s Spanish-language partner ACI Prensa, Steps for Life said Mexico’s 2007 decriminalization of abortion, known as “the Marcelo Law” after its political backer Marcelo Ebrard, “has caused more than a million abortions in Mexico,” noting that “official figures from health centers in Mexico City must be added [to] those performed in private clinics.”
Saturday’s demonstration began at 10:30 a.m. Shortly after 11, participants walked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where they placed a wreath near the Memory and Tolerance Museum to commemorate the murdered unborn babies.
Pro-life leaders then addressed the crowds when they arrived at the Mexico City Congress.
READ: Peruvians celebrate life and family in massive parade drawing an estimated 120,000 participants
Insisting that women deserve better than abortion, Steps for Life’s Michoacán state representative Daniel Ramírez Cortés said women should be getting “better education, more job opportunities, safety guarantees, day care for their children, sports, culture, not death” for their preborn babies, ACI Prensa reported.
Steps for Life’s Jalisco representative likewise called on Mexico’s politicians “to open their eyes and realize that Mexico wants life and not unjust laws that promote systematic violence against women and society.”
This year’s Mexico City March for Life comes as the country is increasingly viewed as an option for abortion-seeking women in the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court’s rollback of Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Since then, many Republican-led states have enacted pro-life laws to ban or at least restrict abortions, including Mexico’s primary northern U.S. neighbor Texas.
READ: Abortions in Texas drop 97% after Roe reversal
CNN reported last year that pro-abortion advocates in Mexico were “watching closely as an increasing number of U.S. states passed abortion restrictions” and “were ready to help.”
Pro-abortion groups — including “Red Necesito Abortar” (“I Need to Abort Network”) and Bloodys Red Tijuana, which doles out dangerous chemical abortion drugs — have reportedly stepped up to help American women in pro-life states kill their preborn babies.
Bloodys Red Tijuana founder Crystal Lira, who traveled to the U.S. to get an abortion a decade ago and is now working to help American women make the same trip in reverse, told the outlet the “numbers [of abortion-seeking women] are going to keep growing.”
Steps for Life event organizer Jahel Torres said during the Saturday event that the Mexican government must “promote the culture of life, the culture of an authentic defense of women for a better development of our country.”
According to Torres, the culture that the pro-life community there is helping to build is one that supports women, their babies, and opportunities “because Mexico loves life.”
Mexico has a history of drawing large crowds to advocate on behalf of the unborn. Last year, a nationwide event drew over a million participants, including 200,000 in Mexico City.
After the 2007 decriminalization of abortion in Mexico, the country’s Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that state laws imposing criminal penalties for abortion were unconstitutional. Most of Mexico’s states have resisted campaigns by pro-abortion activists to remove or alter their abortion restrictions.
“The Supreme Court has not decriminalized abortion in Mexico,” said Omar de la Rosa, president of the Great Coalition of Pro-Life Leaders, after the 2021 Supreme Court decision. “What it did was issue a ruling to establish a precedent, or a criterion for the law to be applicable, but that does not mean that all local or district judges have to do the same.”