(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-lifers in Mexico are continuing to share the truth with women facing unplanned pregnancies despite government agencies having confiscated mobile units equipped to provide mothers with ultrasound images of their unborn babies.
On December 22, the National Pro-Life Committee’s Jorge Serrano informed his affiliates with Human Life International (HLI) that the pro-abortion Mexico City government had “sealed the compound” of the organization’s primary pregnancy care center and seized two mobile units with ultrasound equipment.
Rather than returning the confiscated material, the government has insisted that the pro-life center update its registration from “care center” to “medical center,” arguing that ultrasounds are harmful to women and medical doctors must be present for that service to be provided.
“People need to be aware that there is an intention of the [Mexico City government] to try to stop pro-life activities … especially to try to stop the crisis pregnancy centers, because they are the ones that contribute to more children [being] born,” Mario Rojas, HLI’s Latin America director, told LifeSiteNews in a phone interview this week. “They are demanding that the care centers register as medical clinics, which there is no reason for.”
Rojas explained that the officials who took the mobile ultrasound units were from the city’s Health Protection Agency, which “has no real responsibility on the type [of] services that are offered by the crisis pregnancy centers.”
The care clinics, the title under which the pro-life centers are currently registered, exist to “provide advice to women” by giving them ultrasounds.
“What they do is they just show that picture to women and advise them, you know, on the dangers if they decided to go and get an abortion or something like that,” Rojas said. “And that’s it. They don’t do anything else. But the government of Mexico is claiming no, what you are doing, you are causing damage to women and to the unborn children because the ultrasound caused damage.”
Rojas added that receiving an ultrasound is not a dangerous service and doesn’t require any special precautions to be taken to avoid harming either the mother or her baby. Additionally, the requirement to be registered as a medical clinic would force the ultrasound units to be overseen by a medical doctor at all times.
Although the government is “not willing to give back the services of the central care center and the two mobile units,” pro-lifers in Mexico City continue to provide truthful consultations about abortion by giving women pictures of their children to encourage them to choose life. Despite the “many different ways” the city government attempts to thwart the mission, Rojas said the pro-lifers “will always come back and keep on providing those services because they believe it’s very important that women have the right to know the truth.”
While a legal battle with the Mexico City government is ongoing, other states are not “so radical” and are not preventing HLI affiliates from serving women and babies in unplanned pregnancies, and so the mission continues.
According to a January 13 press release, the ultrasound vans, referred to as Mobile CAMs, were established in Mexico City in 1989 by Serrano’s team, who has “operated mobile pregnancy centers outside Mexico City abortion facilities” for more than 30 years.
“By reaching more than 322,000 expectant mothers and showing them the ultrasound images of their child in utero in the critical minutes before they are sold an abortion, these pregnancy counselors have saved more than 210,000 babies from death.”
HLI reported that during the third quarter of 2022, a total 1,349 ultrasounds were given to pregnant women and 349 “made a decision to not proceed with abortion and said yes to life for their preborn children.”
Additionally, the organization tracked a total of 2,837 cases in which “babies were saved from abortion by these affiliated pregnancy resource centers throughout Mexico.” Seventy percent of the women who chose life for their children had received care and consultation from the mobile ultrasound units.
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