January 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The leading presidential candidate of Mexico’s most pro-abortion party is promising that the coalition he leads will not “impose” abortion on the country, but will decide the matter based on input from the whole of civil society.
“We must guarantee freedom, and part of respecting freedom is the obligation to practice the democratic method,” said Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a speech given to youth in the city of Pachuca, Hidalgo, on Tuesday.
“And that implies listening to everyone and that everyone participates, and for that reason we will see to it that, regarding controversial issues, that there are hearings, and that we do not impose (a policy),” added Obrador.
Asked what he regarded as “controversial” following the speech, Obrador responded: “In particular, regarding abortion, my proposal is to consult the people if it is necessary to make a decision regarding this issue, and that nothing is imposed, one way or the other.”
Obrador’s words echo a similar statement he made in December, in which he said that “when we are talking about deciding these issues there must be hearings, a referendum, and in special cases, ask women, they are the ones who decide.”
The candidate’s cautious approach to the abortion issue contrasts sharply with his chief rival for the presidential nomination of the socialist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Marcelo Ebrard.
Ebrard, who is currently the head of government of Mexico City, the nation’s capital, explicitly endorses the decriminalization of abortion throughout Mexico, and signed Mexico City’s abortion-on-demand law in 2007, through which tens of thousands of unborn children have been killed at government hospitals, free of charge to the mothers.
Although the national leadership of the PRD tends to support the decriminalization of abortion, many representatives at the state level have balked at such a policy, and some have openly opposed it.