Mexico’s Roe v. Wade

Several hundred pro-life advocates gathered in Mexico City on Tuesday in anticipation of a ruling by Mexico’s highest court that could determine the future of abortion laws in the country. Most wore masks and held signs as they spread out on the paved surface of the Zócalo, the city’s main square surrounded by the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Palace, and the Supreme Court of Justice for the Nation. Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the Mexican pro-life group National Front for the Family, arrived at 8 a.m. that morning when the weather was still cool. He stayed until late afternoon, but some in the group remained through the night and into the next afternoon to await Wednesday’s ruling. “It was a very hopeful moment,” Cortés said.

Those at the gathering represented more than 200,000 Mexicans who signed an online petition protesting a court ruling in Veracruz state that would have decriminalized abortion and set a precedent for judges in other states to follow. But in a 4-1 vote on Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld the state’s law, temporarily halting the pro-abortion agenda of Mexico’s liberalized federal government in a culturally pro-life country.

Abortion is legal in only two of Mexico’s 32 states, reflecting the traditional family values of the local governments and predominantly Catholic communities. But Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Secretary of the Interior Olga Sánchez Cordero have pushed for what they call the “new rights,” Cortés said. As the United Nations and other globalist groups have pressured conservative countries to adopt their liberal agenda, leaders in Mexico have bought into it. “We have a pro-life country with a pro-death government,” Cortés added.

In Wednesday’s decision, the justices voted against the decriminalization of abortion, not on moral grounds but because they said the court had no right to legislate.

“This could’ve been Mexico’s Roe v. Wade, and it didn’t materialize,” Alfonso Aguilar, president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, told LifeSite News. A pro-abortion decision on Wednesday would have allowed politicians to force a right to abortion on local constitutions that protect unborn life.

For now, the rights of Mexican states to enforce pro-life laws remain, but Cortés said the fight will go on as political leaders continue to push pro-abortion initiatives in 28 other states. Meanwhile, areas without protections for the unborn will still serve as abortion tourism destinations for Mexicans. In southern and central Mexico, that destination is Mexico City, which allows abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation.

In regions closer to the United States, women sometimes travel north to abort their unborn children. “We get calls from girls coming across the border,” said Sharon Pearce, the executive director of Silent Voices, a pregnancy center in Chula Vista, Calif. The staff there has seen clients who came from Mexico thinking they could obtain an abortion at the pro-life center.

Pearce said publicly funded health insurance draws women from Mexico: “If they couldn’t afford it down there … a lot of times they’ll come up here.” She added that women will use the address of a relative or close friend who lives in the area to apply for a healthcare program.

“Personally, I wouldn’t be brokenhearted if there were fewer people coming across the border for an abortion,” said Pearce. “I don’t want anybody to choose abortion for any reason, but I struggle with the fact that we’re paying for these abortions.”

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