Mexico City bill that legalizes abortion during first three months' gestation published into law

A bill that allows pregnant women to obtain a legal abortion in Mexico City during the first three months' gestation was published into law on Thursday, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports (Castillo, AP/Houston Chronicle , 4/26).

Under national Mexican law, abortion only is permitted if the life of the pregnant woman is endangered or if the woman has been raped. However, lawmakers from the Party of the Democratic Revolution in March in the Mexico City Legislature proposed allowing abortions during the first three months of pregnancy in the city, and lawmakers on Tuesday voted 46-19 to approve it ( Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report 4/25).

Authorities are expected to publish regulations for the law next week, but City Health Secretary Manuel Mondragon said that pregnant women near 12-weeks' gestation will be allowed to have abortions beginning on Friday. According to the AP/Chronicle , the procedure will be available at no cost at 14 of the 28 hospitals in the city. Mondragon said that women seeking abortions will have to prove they are residents of the city except in cases of medical emergency and that each facility will be able to perform about seven abortions per day. Girls younger than age 18 will need parental consent to obtain an abortion.

Officials said it was not clear if private hospitals would have to provide the procedure. The law allows gynecologists who have moral objections to refrain from performing abortions ( AP/Houston Chronicle , 4/26).

Advocacy Groups' Reaction
The antiabortion group Pro-Vida has pledged to block pregnant women from entering abortion clinics and hospitals in Mexico City and publicly identify abortion providers if the measure is enacted, the AP/International Herald Tribune reports (Castillo, AP/International Herald Tribune , 4/25).

In addition, the College of Catholic Lawyers on Thursday said it will file a complaint Wednesday to the Organization of American States' Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which is based in Costa Rica, Reuters reports. Father Hugo Valdemar, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Mexico City, said the law violates a clause in the Mexican Constitution that says the government must defend life "from conception until its natural end." According to Reuters , Mexican law prevents the Roman Catholic Church from appealing the law to the country's Supreme Court (Bremer, Reuters , 4/26).

Alma Luz Beltran of the Group of Information on Reproductive Choice, which supports abortion rights, said that her group believes it is "quite probable" the attorney general will appeal the law to the Mexican Supreme Court but added that the group believes, "given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, it would be very unlikely that they would invalidate it." Beltran and other abortion-rights advocates plan to call for access to safe and affordable abortions and to pressure federally run hospitals in the city to provide the procedure ( AP/International Herald Tribune , 4/25).

Editorial
The laws regulating "sexuality" in Mexico are "more discriminatory toward women than most people realize," which is why Mexico City's decision to legalize abortions during the first three months of pregnancy "marks such an important change," a Los Angeles Times editorial says. Although Mexico's federal government allows abortions in cases of rape or to save a pregnant woman's life, "actually getting the procedure done can be prohibitively difficult" for low-income women, the editorial says. In addition, rape victims are "often treated dismissively or openly humiliated by the justice system," making women reluctant to report the crime and thus "disqualifying them from a legal abortion" if they become pregnant, according to the Times . Although the Mexico City vote "won't change all" of the "bureaucracies" that delay the abortion until it is medically too late, it will act as a "safety valve" that "will save lives and ease misery nationwide," the editorial says ( Los Angeles Times , 4/26).