_WORLD WATCH______________________________
____________________ Mexico ________________

Abortion proponents plot strategy
Plans to change national laws
Health officials from 20 Latin American countries gathered in Mexico in November to lay out their strategy for legalizing abortion in the predominantly Catholic region.

The three-day conference was sponsored by Mexico’s National Institute of Health, and subsidized by the US-based Population Council and Guttmacher Institute. It brought together more than 250 government officials in the fields of health and human services. The stated aim of the conference was to help Latin American governments establish “a free exchange of ideas” about the legalization of abortion. (Many of the countries that were represented at the conference have a commitment to the sanctity of all human life enshrined in their constitutions.)

World Health Organization representative Axel Mundigo told the conference participants that clandestine abortions claim about 6,000 lives each year. (He was referring to the mothers who died from complications, and not the unborn children who are killed.) “Abortion needs to be discussed in a public forum so that women, who represent more than half the population, become the ones who decide the fate of legislation dealing with abortion,” Mundigo said.

Protesters from a number of Mexican pro-life groups picketed the pro-abortion assembly. Some of the demonstrators, affiliated with the ruling National Action Party, petitioned in vain for Mexican President Vicente Fox to revoke the visas of attendees and force them to leave the country.

Back to Catholic World Report January 2002 Table of Contents