By Brenda Lopez Romero
Impunity Watch Reporter – North America desk

TLAXCALA, Mexico – The governor, Héctor Israel Ortiz Ortiz, was urged by over 40 organizations to project a women’s right to choose in the state Congress by vetoing legislation that promotes the right to life primarily because it also seeks to penalize abortions.

The groups said in a letter to state governments that the government should be for the people and not the Vatican.  They emphasized a need for a secular government because a religious moral code should not be forced onto people nor turned into civil law.  Elsa Conde, a former legislator, said that a belief in sin could not become a crime.

Beatriz Paredes Rangel, president of the national party, Institutional Revolutionary Party, was asked to urge her party to vote against all bills that leaves women with no other recourse than to seek unsafe clandestine abortions.

There was also a protest organized by the group Women for the Right to Choose in the Federal District.  They denounce that 18 state legislators are changing state constitution without considering the indignation of women.

Conde said in regards to similar legislation “all these are beginning to criminalize women restricting their right to choose over their life, body, and parenthood.  This reform signifies a grave setback for the rights of women and makes vulnerable the secular government by casting doubt on scientific research and advancement.”

For more information, please see:

La Jornada – Exigen ONG al gobierno de Tlaxcala vetar la iniciativa contra el aborto –
16 February 2010

Radio Formula – Congreso Tlaxcala termina sesión sin votos para aprobar ley antiaborto – 16 February 2010