Yesterday, on International Safe Abortion Day, hundreds of women in Mexico City clashed with the police during protests demanding nationwide legalized abortion in Mexico. The protestors donned green bandanas, the symbol of the Latin American pro-choice movement, and threw Molotov cocktails and bottles at police lines. Much of the police force was comprised of female officers. The officers’ response was to spray the protestors with tear gas and pepper spray.
The city reported that conservative, anti-abortion groups have created their own protest encampment in the city’s main plaza, the area where protesters want to be.
Abortion is only legal in Mexico City and the southern state Oaxaca (only since last year) during the first 12 weeks. The rest of the country (with a population of 128 million people) bans abortion except for specific, limited cases like rape. Mexican feminist groups have been taking increasingly hardened stances on issues such as these, especially as violence against women grows – an average of ten women are murdered every day in the country.
Media Resources: Reuters 9/28/20, VOA News 9/29/20, MSN 9/28/20; AP News 9/28/20
