Veracruz, Mexico, Approves Law Defining Conception as Start of Life; Mexican Congress To Consider Constitutional Abortion Ban

November 20, 2009 — Veracruz, Mexico, on Wednesday became the 17th of the country's 32 states to enact a law defining life as beginning at conception, the AP/Google News reports. States began adopting such laws -- most of which make abortion a homicide -- in 2008 after Mexico City enacted a law legalizing abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Veracruz lawmakers also adopted a proposal requiring the Mexican Congress to consider a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. Mexico allows any of its state's legislatures to propose a constitutional amendment. If the bicameral Congress and a majority of states support the measure, the amendment is added to the national constitution.

Abortion-rights supporters said Wednesday that the amendment stands a good chance of passing because both the majority National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party supported the state law. The Roman Catholic Church is expected to lobby heavily for the amendment. Noemi Ramirez, director of the Mexican Academy of Human Rights, said that "it is quite probable" that Congress will support the measure. Maria Luisa Sanchez of the Group for Informed Reproductive Rights described the Veracruz developments as "outrageous, disappointing and very frustrating," adding, "It is very serious that they have brought it up on the federal level."

The Veracruz law includes a clause that allows alternative sentencing options, such as mandatory "education programs" rather than jail time, for women convicted of violating the abortion ban. The law also includes exceptions for rape, fetal abnormality or danger to the woman's life. According to abortion-rights advocate Rosalia Cruz Sanchez, those exceptions have little impact in practice. Sanchez said that some doctors who fear prosecution for performing abortions require women who say they were raped to produce a letter from a prosecutor corroborating that fact. Officials often drag out the process for more than 12 weeks, after which point most states prohibit the procedure (Stevenson, AP/Google News, 11/19).