Mexico Pauses Pro-Abortion Constitutional Reform
By David Ramos
The administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and legislators from his ruling National Regeneration Movement decided to put on hold for now the debate on amending the federal constitution to insert abortion rights and gender ideology.
In an April 14 press conference, López Obrador said that "when there are highly controversial confrontational issues, points of view, the best thing is to consult the citizens.”
The president stressed that that his “recommendation” to Mexican legislators “is that citizens be consulted on controversial issues, where there are substantive differences. Consultation and that the people decide, let the people decide.”
López Obrador was referring to a type of informal referendum without the force of law conducted by party members among their constituencies in order to determine or justify government policy.
“Regarding all these initiatives,” he stated, “I think there won’t be time. It’s not that we have influence in the legislature, it’s that the ordinary session will be over at the end of this month,” the president added.
The ordinary legislative sessions in Mexico are from Sept. 1 to Dec. 15 and from Feb. 1 to April 30.
On March 11, the committee in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies which reviews proposed changes to the constitution issued a favorable opinion on constitutional reforms that open the door to legalizing abortion and imposing gender ideology.
Controversial terms that would be inserted in the constitution include “reproductive autonomy,” “free development of the personality,” “sexual and reproductive health services,” "gender expression,” "same-sex marriages,” "substantive equality,” "sexual and genital identity,” and generic sexes.
Speaking with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, said that as part of their work against the constitutional reform, they met with the main leaders of the National Regeneration Movement in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
In these conversations, Cortés stressed, "we obtained from him, clearly, the word that, despite the fact that it has already been introduced and that it has already been sent to committees, it would not go to a full session of the legislature" for a debate and vote.
Cortés stressed that "the vast majority" of the initiatives in favor of abortion and gender ideology during this administration have been introduced and pushed by the president’s National Regeneration Movement.
Regarding the constitutional reform project, the pro-family leader said, "we can say that for now this is being sent to the‘ freezer,’ but we must not drop our guard."
"We know why we are like this right now, because legislators who did not tell the truth in the last election campaign came to hold their seat in Congress with secret agendas, with unspoken interests," he said.
These secret agendas, he added, were contrary to those that led "to López Obrador’s victory" in the presidential race.
Besides encouraging citizens to stay on top of what’s going on in the legislature, Cortés made "a very important, very strong, powerful call that we know how to vote, that we demand that the candidates state their positions during this election cycle."
On June 6, Mexicans will vote for each of the 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies and more than 20,000 local offices, such as governors, state legislators, and mayors, in what the National Electoral Institute has described as the “largest election Mexican history.”
For the president of the National Front for the Family, "the challenge is about the election, so that we have representatives who genuinely promote and defend life, family and freedoms."