A pro-abortion group claiming to represent Catholics is running advertisements in newspapers throughout Mexico promoting bills in the nation's Congress and capital city's legislature to legalize abortion.The measures would ditch the nation's pro-life law and allow abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Just one day after several thousand Mexicans rallied against the bills in a protest Sunday, the "Catholics for the Right to Choose" group ran the ads in Monday editions of top city papers.
They promote a bill sponsored by Mexico's largest leftist party, the Democratic Revolution Party, which would overturn the largely Catholic nation's abortion ban.
"The decision to interrupt a pregnancy is a serious ethical dilemma," the pro-abortion organization says in its ads. "Women who resort to this option ... do it as a last resort after considering all of the consequences, and they make the decision responsibly, according to their conscience."
The group did not respond to an email requesting comment, but its web site describes it as a group of "autonomous Catholics" wanting to "change the cultural and religious patterns present in our societies."
The group, led by Theresa Lanza of Columbia, has worked to organize abortion advocates in Argentina and other Latin American nations.
"The Church needs to realize that we can be good Catholics while at the same time looking out for our interests as women," she's said previously.
The ads also come after the Vatican sent a leading official to Mexico to help the Catholic Church and pro-life advocates there stop the bills.
The church has a long pro-life stance but it doesn't want to see another nation legalize abortion on the heels of Portugal's parliament passing a measure taking the European nation's name off of a list of pro-life countries.
Also, Mexico has the second largest Catholic population anywhere in the world and a defeat there would be a blow to the pro-life movement and could lead to the toppling of pro-life laws found in virtually all of the Central and South American nations.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo arrived last week in Mexico to help lead pro-life efforts by organizing events and rallying both pro-life advocates and lawmakers against the legalization proposal.
Polls show most Mexicans are pro-life and don't want abortion and a January poll sponsored by the polling firm Consulta Mitofsky found only 32.1 percent of those polled said they agreed with abortion.
Breaking the results down by political party, only 30 percent of people who side with the conservative National Action Party (PAN) agree with abortion while just 28.7 percent of those who identify themselves as members of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) back abortion.
The Mexico City bill is seen as more likely to pass and PAN President Felipe Calderon is expected to veto the congressional measure.
Calderon recently reiterated his opposition to abortion, according to an AP report.
“I have a personal conviction, and I am in defense of life,” he told a news conference. “I have a plain respect for dignity and human life and within this I believe the existing legislation is adequate.”
The bill also would mandate that government-financed health clinics do abortions if low-income women ask for them.
Mexico City currently allows abortions in cases of rape or incest and when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother while the rest of the nation only allows abortions in cases of sexual abuse.
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