Mexican court turns down UN-backed abortion lawsuit, C-Fam reports

Mexico

A pro-abortion lawsuit backed by various United Nations offices has been dismissed by the Supreme Court of Mexico, a report on Thursday by the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) stated.

According to C-Fam, the lawsuit sought to overturn protections for the unborn in the State of Veracruz.

The human rights organization said the suit alleged that legal protections for children in the womb are a form of gender-based violence and a violation of international law.

Backed by the international abortion groups and three UN agencies, UN Women, the UN Population Fund, and the UN agency for drugs and crime as well as the UN human rights office, C-Fam said the UN agencies had in 2018 confirmed their support for the lawsuit.

However, C-Fam said backing such a lawsuit very likely violates a U.S. law that prohibits recipients of U.S. taxpayer dollars from lobbying for or against abortion.

Two years ago, Mexican abortion groups sued the Veracruz government to allow abortion on demand in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.

They claimed the state legislature of Veracruz had “violated international law” and “caused violence against women” by keeping abortion out of a nationally mandated gender-based violence program in 2016.

The human rights further noted that the lawsuit was initially successful, stating that a district court judge ordered the state of Veracruz to make abortion legal in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.

But that the judge cited the non-binding opinions of international human rights bodies, even though UN agreements recognize abortion as an exclusively national issue and international experts dispute such claims as baseless.

It also noted that the three UN agencies and the UN human rights office publicly supported the order of the district court judge to the legislature of Veracruz in April 2018, putting the weight of the entire UN system in favor of decriminalizing abortion.

It said, in a joint press statement the UN entities supported the judge’s demand that Veracruz “guarantee” access to abortion to women and girls as way to “support efforts to improve and realize women´s right to health” based on “international standards on human rights.

It said also that their statement might have violated a U.S. law known as the Siljander Amendment which prohibits recipients of U.S. foreign aid, including UN agencies, from lobbying for or against abortion, claiming that the four agencies receive over $200 million from U.S. taxpayers annually.

C-Fam stated further that the Mexican Supreme Court did not pronounce on the merits of the case and dismissed it on a technicality and left open the possibility that it may side with abortion groups in the future.

“I agree that international treaties are binding on the Mexican State and they seek to protect women and eliminate all forms of violence,” the human rights quoted justice Norma Lucía Piña, who wrote the majority opinion to had said, but explaining that “we are not taking a decision on the merits, nor do we disagree on the protection of women.”

“We thank God that the Supreme Court preserved legal protections for human life in the womb,” quoting a statement of the Catholic Bishops of Mexico released last week following the decision.

It said the Bishops’ statement urged public authorities and the people of Mexico to remain vigilant in a time of “great challenges” and entrusted the country to the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Currently only 2 out of 32 Mexican States allow abortion on-demand in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, and 17 States explicitly protect children in the women “from the moment of conception.”

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