A bill that would legalize abortion laws in Mexico City is moving through the capital’s city assembly and is expected to pass within months. Currently, Mexico City allows abortion only when a woman’s life is threatened, while the rest of the heavily Roman Catholic country only permits abortion in the case of rape. This new bill would allow all abortions in the first three months of pregnancy.
“No church, no religion can impose its vision of the world in this city,” Assembly Leader Victor Hugo Cirigo said of the new bill. Cirigo’s liberal Party of the Democratic Revolution controls the legislative assembly with 34 of the city’s 66 legislative seats. While Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon is Catholic, Mexico City has been governed with a “more liberal stance toward religion” since 1997, Reuters reports.
In November 2006, the Mexico City legislative assembly voted to legalize same-sex civil unions. According to Reuters, the assembly and the Catholic Church may clash again over the legalization of euthanasia.
