It’s still hard for me to believe that abortion is illegal in Mexico, but I guess that’s because my idea of Mexican society is linked to (relatively) liberal Mexico City. In the capital, the head of the PRD, Mexico’s leftist party, has announced that he will support a bill in the assembly to “depenalize” abortion:

The local PRD leader said that he calls on those who oppose the initiative and threaten to protest to take into account that this is a fair demand, as thousands of deaths occur each year because of botched abortions.

He also said that the PRD doesn’t want a confrontation with anyone, on the contrary, “we respect all points of view, but we are going to create an awareness campaign for the public, because this really is a polemic topic and it needs wide reach.”

He said that’s why it’s the local assemblymembers’ job to establish a system for listening to different opinions and defining the process to approve depenalization of abortion in all cases, so that the woman be the one who decides if she will terminate her pregnancy or not, with a limit of 14 weeks of gestation.

As was to be expected, the Catholic church in Mexico City called the bill “an abominable crime” and vowed to oppose it and the PRD’s call to make the “abortion pill”, known as RU-486, legal.

Via / La Jornada