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Mexican capital legalises abortion
Legislators in the Mexican capital have legalised abortion, defying the Roman Catholic Church which prohibits the procedure.
Mexico City legislators voted 46 to 19 to pass a leftist-sponsored bill allowing women to seek abortion within the first trimester at city hospitals and private abortion clinics.
Girls under 18 need parental consent.
The ban remains elsewhere in the world's second-largest Catholic nation, where abortions are allowed only in extreme cases such as rape, severe birth defects or where the woman's life is at risk.
Anti-abortion activists are planning to appeal the law to the Supreme Court.
Mexicans are sharply divided over the bill and have staged emotional protests.
Pope Benedict sent a letter last week urging Mexican bishops to oppose the bill.
But supporters welcomed the move saying it will prevent thousands of mostly poor women who resort to abortions in unhygienic backstreet clinics from dying each year.
Botched jobs
"We don't want any more women to die in clandestine abortions," Agustin Guerrero, a leftist local deputy, said.
Jorge Diaz Cuervo, a city legislator and a social democrat who voted for the bill, said: "Decriminalising abortion is a historic triumph, a triumph of the left."
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D1183BBF-B941-47CE-845D-E17DCF7E55D6.htm
Girls under 18 need parental consent.
The ban remains elsewhere in the world's second-largest Catholic nation, where abortions are allowed only in extreme cases such as rape, severe birth defects or where the woman's life is at risk.
Anti-abortion activists are planning to appeal the law to the Supreme Court.
Mexicans are sharply divided over the bill and have staged emotional protests.
Pope Benedict sent a letter last week urging Mexican bishops to oppose the bill.
But supporters welcomed the move saying it will prevent thousands of mostly poor women who resort to abortions in unhygienic backstreet clinics from dying each year.
Botched jobs
"We don't want any more women to die in clandestine abortions," Agustin Guerrero, a leftist local deputy, said.
Jorge Diaz Cuervo, a city legislator and a social democrat who voted for the bill, said: "Decriminalising abortion is a historic triumph, a triumph of the left."
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D1183BBF-B941-47CE-845D-E17DCF7E55D6.htm
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The proposal, approved 46-19, with one abstention, will take effect when the mayor signs it.
But abortion opponents have already vowed to appeal the law to the Supreme Court, which will extend the bitter and emotional debate in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.
"Decriminalising abortion is a historic triumph, a triumph of the left," said city legislator Jorge Diaz Cuervo, a social democrat who voted for the bill yesterday. "Today, there is a new atmosphere in this city. It is the atmosphere of freedom."
Nationally, Mexico allows abortion only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or if the woman's life is at risk. Doctors sometimes refuse to perform the procedure even under those circumstances.
The new law will require city hospitals to provide the procedure in the first trimester and opens the way for private abortion clinics. Girls under 18 would have to get their parents' consent.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2483957.ece