Mexico City to legalize abortion in landmark vote
By Greg Brosnan and Catherine Bremer 46 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico City lawmakers are almost certain to legalize abortion in the capital of the world's second-largest Roman Catholic country on Tuesday in direct defiance of the Pope.
Leftist lawmakers dominate Mexico City's local assembly and will vote on allowing women in the capital to abort in the first three months of pregnancy.
Riot police stood between rival groups of demonstrators outside the assembly building as the debate began. Weeping anti-abortion protesters played tape recordings of babies crying and carried tiny white coffins.
In Latin America, only Cuba, Guyana and U.S. commonwealth Puerto Rico allow abortion on demand. Mexico and many other countries permit it in special cases, including after rape, if the fetus has defects or if the mother's life is at risk.
The abortion vote has split Mexico and inspired a letter from
Pope Benedict urging Mexican bishops to oppose it.
Church leaders have threatened to excommunicate deputies from the Party of the Democratic Revolution who vote in favor of lifting the abortion ban, which will remain in force in the rest of Mexico.
"They will get the penalty of excommunication. That is not revenge, it is just what happens in the case of serious sins," said Felipe Aguirre Franco, the archbishop of Acapulco.
City deputies from President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, tried delaying tactics that might delay the vote until early Wednesday morning.
Leftists, who hold more than half of the assembly's 66 seats, threw out a PAN motion aimed at derailing the abortion bill.
Opinion polls show Mexico's population of 107 million, of whom some 90 percent are Catholic, is split over the issue.
PROTESTS
Supporters of abortion, who are well-represented in the liberal-minded capital, say 2,000 women die each year in Mexico, often poor women who have to resort to unhygienic back-street clinics.
"Yes to abortion, no to hypocrisy," read a poster held by Teresa Rivera, 57, who said she had a clandestine abortion when younger and was dumped in the street still anesthetized by the abortionist. "Excommunicate me," said another banner held by a woman in her 20s.
"There are children dying of hunger, that is a worse sin," said Julia Klug, 54, dressed in a fake cardinal's outfit.
Mexico City lawmakers have recently stirred up controversy by allowing gay civil unions and considering a euthanasia law. Further alarming the anti-abortion camp, Mexican lawmakers have filed a proposal in Congress for a national abortion law.
Anti-abortion campaigners say the fetus three months into pregnancy is a human being.
"At 12 weeks, its heart is beating, it has little arms, little legs. It's innocent, it can't say, 'Don't take my life away,"' said protester Graciela Nunez, 46.
Conservatives published a full page of symbolic death notices for unborn children in a newspaper on Tuesday.
Abortion opponents have collected the 36,000 signatures they need to ask the city assembly for a referendum on abortion but any vote would not be binding on lawmakers.
Calderon, a practicing Catholic, has largely avoided speaking on the issue but First Lady Margarita Zavala entered the debate at the weekend, condemning abortion in a rare political comment.
Opponents may challenge the abortion law in the Supreme Court if it passes.
(Additional reporting by Adriana Barrera and Andrew Winning)