Legalizing Abortion

Finally, women in Mexico have won their long-fought battles with the male-dominated Catholic Church hierarchies their right and freedom to choose abortion. If the men could be pregnant, we would have abortion on demand long time ago. Abortion rights have gained ground in Latin America when more than two thirds of the Mexico City’s legislative assembly members voted on 24 April to approve a law allowing Mexican women to have abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancies. This law indicates a sign of political and social change in the region where only two countries, Cuba and Guyana allow abortions in the first trimester. Since 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized that the wellbeing of women depended on opportunities for women to control their lives in all areas, including education and health. Increased recognition in the United Nations circles of reproductive rights came much later on. In 1968, the Teheran Declaration of International Conference on Human Rights included the rights of individuals to information and family planning and these were confirmed later on at the international conferences on population issues held in Bucharest in 1974, Mexico City in 1984 and Cairo in 1994. Declarations ensuing from those various international conferences spearhead the winning of a legal battle that happened in Mexico last week. Women in Mexico and in other Latin American countries have the right to attain the highest standards of sexual and reproductive health, including safe abortion, and to make reproductive choices free from coercion from conservative groups in the government or religious establishments.

Filed under Gender Issues, Travel, United Nations, World Affairs |