The Congress of Quintana Roo, a federative entity located in the extreme south of Mexico, will decide this Wednesday, February 24, whether or not to decriminalize abortion on free demand until the 12th week of gestation.
The case is of singular relevance because the way in which the parliamentarians were forced to put the issue on the ballot may become a modus operandi for radical groups and be repeated in other countries in the region.
The Quintana Roo Feminist Network took over the facilities of the local Legislative Power in November of last year, preventing its operation for three consecutive months, until they imposed on the deputies, on February 10, a legislative agenda with well-defined deadlines for two legislative initiatives to were discussed and voted: a reform to the local Constitution and another modifies the Penal Code.
The entire legislative process should be done in less than fifteen days. Today the deadline is met and it must be put to a vote in the plenary session that begins at 11 in the morning.
The group – tiny, radical and well trained – practically kidnapped the institution and did so under the aegis of the federal government and the United Nations (UN), which gave them the status of “defenders of women’s rights and rights. girls.”
The Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador activated the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in favor of feminists and the office in Mexico of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights supported the takeover of Congress from the first moment arguing that the extremists exercised their “right to free demonstration.”
In the hasty process of discussion of the two bills, various sectors of the population expressed their opposition to modifying the Constitution, whose article 13 reads:
“The State of Quintana Roo recognizes, protects and guarantees the right to life of every human being, by expressly supporting that from the moment of conception it falls under the protection of the Law and is refuted as a subject of rights for all purposes corresponding legal until his death. ”
In 2009, that state was the ninth to protect the right to life in its fundamental law.
Representatives of the Medical College of Quintana Roo openly opposed the approval of the legal interruption of pregnancy, during one of the consultation forums. According to official figures, last year 13 clandestine abortions were reported in a population of 2 million inhabitants.
Citizen organizations handed over 100,000 signatures to Congress demanding not to legislate in favor of abortion, the feminist collective sent 14,000.
For the bills to be approved, at least 17 votes of the 25 legislators are necessary.
A curious fact: the vote is taking place while the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, is touring Mexico. The southern country has decriminalized abortion, through an initiative sent by the president, which also allows unborn babies to be killed under the free demand of their mothers until week 14.