The Vatican yesterday sent in its top anti-abortion campaigner to kick off the Roman Catholic Church's aggressive campaign against plans to legalize abortion in Mexico.The church's campaign pushes the limit of Mexico's constitutional ban on political activity by religious groups. It is also drawing President Felipe Calderon, a conservative who opposes abortion, into a showdown with leftists spearheading the bills to legalize abortion.
"In the name of Jesus Christ and his Gospel, we ask, we implore they do not approve an unjust and bloody law that kills the innocent," said the Rev. Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico City.
While the church has always been against abortion, the Vatican especially does not want to not lose its anti-abortion fight in Mexico, which has the second-largest Catholic population in Latin America.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo (pic'd above), who made headlines in 2003 for saying condoms do not prevent AIDS, was expected to inaugurate an international anti-abortion conference yesterday at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the most important Catholic shrine in the Americas.
The conference in Mexico City, sponsored by Mexico's leading anti-abortion group, Pro-Vida, will feature talks by anti-abortion activists, including Dr. John Wilkie, an early leader of the U.S. National Right to Life Committee.
Mexico's Roman Catholic Church is calling on its followers to participate in a massive march tomorrow led by Mexico City's own Cardinal Norberto Rivera.
Lawmakers from the main opposition Democratic Revolution Party, who proposed the bills to legalize abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, have asked the church to stay out of the matter.
Valdemar called their request "fascist," and church officials have repeatedly defended their actions as protected freedom of speech.
The debate has drawn international interest, which also could violate a Mexican law that bars foreigners from political activism.
In 2000, authorities barred U.S. and Canadian anti-abortion activists from returning to Mexico for five years after the group joined protests in Mexico City's main square.
The debate also revives tensions between Calderon and the Democratic Revolution Party, threatening to plunge the country back into political turmoil.
Leftists seized the capital's financial and historical districts for nearly two months after Calderon's narrow July 2 election victory, which they claimed was tainted by fraud and government meddling.
Calderon, of the conservative National Action Party, has spoken against legalizing abortion. "I have a personal conviction and I am in defense of life," he said Tuesday.
The bill to legalize abortion is expected to easily pass in Mexico City, a leftist bastion where Democratic Revolution holds the mayorship and the majority of seats in the city legislature.
Democratic Revolution lawmakers have filed a similar bill in the national Senate, but it is expected to face a tough battle there.
Most Latin American countries, including Mexico, allow abortion if the woman's life is in danger or in cases of rape or incest. In November, Nicaragua bans abortion in all cases.
Cuba permits abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, as does the United States.
Wealthier Mexican women often travel to the United States for abortions, while thousands of poor women risk drinking potent herbal teas, taking pills or using other risky measures to abort illegally.
"It's very easy to get an illegal abortion," said Cecilia Garcia, a street seller who hawks cosmetics in the poor city of Ecatepec on the capital's outskirts. "You can go to the Sonora market (a popular market selling home and witchcraft remedies), look on the Internet for ways, or go to certain doctors who will do it."
Garcia said her 28-year-old friend went to the Internet to find pills she could take to abort her fetus, then bought the medicine at a pharmacy for $150. After taking them, she passed out and almost bled to death. Work colleagues rushed her to the hospital.
"I felt so sad for the baby, but at the same time I was happy that my friend had survived," Garcia said. "That's why I'm in favor of legalizing abortion."
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