MEXICO CITY, January 29, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Mexican bishops have expressed an unequivocal denunciation of the Mexican government’s decision last week to legalize and distribute the chemical-abortion morning-after pill. In a series of statements released this week, bishops there are expressing their outrage with statements such as “The pill is a method of abortion comparable to murder,” and “women who use the pill are effectively excommunicating themselves from the church.” In a statement from the Mexican Bishops Conference Family Committee, Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar said that “Contraception and abortion are both products of an anti-life mentality, which comes from the culture of death.” Because the morning-after pill prevents implantation of a newly formed embryo, Church leaders argued that this is clearly abortion and not contraception. “Stopping an egg from attaching to the womb is clearly abortion. It kills a newly conceived human being, the most innocent of lives,” Bishop Aguilar said in his statement. In a re-iteration of millennial teaching on the subject, Church officials reminded the faithful that abortion is a mortal sin, and that “people who practice it will spiritually excommunicate themselves. This (excommunication) is not the opinion of a bishop or even the opinion of the pope. It is the law of the church,” Cardinal Norberto Rivera told local media. The morning-after pill is slated to be available through government-run “family planning clinics.” Read the Huston Chronicle coverage at: https://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2375891 Read the Mexican bishops document (in Spanish): https://www.cem.org.mx/comision/familia/230104.htm
Mexican bishops:
- Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar
- Cardinal Norberto Rivera