Saturday, January 21, 2012

Assault on Abortion rights in Mexico - The Nation

A belated mention of an article I highly recommend, from The Nation and written by Mary Cuddehe:
"Mexico's Anti-Abortion Backlash."
Rosario. She was 20 and had recently completed a nine-month probation sentence. Her story was shocking to me at the time. She had taken abortion pills, fallen ill with nausea, gone to the hospital and been reported to the police. She said the staff had mistreated her, calling her names, completing the abortion surgically without anesthesia (which is standard) and allowing medical students into the room to take pictures with their cellphones..
More than half of Mexico's states, mostly in PRI-PAN legislative alliances, have passed a ley aborto equivalent to the wacko "life at conception" laws recently defeated in the state of Mississippi. The article in particular highlights the state persecution of citizens in run by one of the most reactionary and ultra-right sections of the PAN political elite. Keep in mind, however, that most of the extremist legislation passed when alleged "progressive" Beatriz Paredes was PRI's national leader. She may well hold progressive views, but did not lift a finger to stop her party, traditionally quite secular, from allying with the traditionally pro catholic PAN.
... In 2009 in the southern state of Quintana Roo, a Mayan woman was wrongfully jailed for what turned out to be a spontaneous miscarriage, and in 2010 an 11-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather was denied an abortion because she was four months pregnant—one month past the allowable twelve weeks. 
 Read this excellent and harrowing investigative piece of original reporting here.

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