As goes Mexico, the US runs in the other direction

Yesterday the Mexico City legislature voted to legalize abortion in the first trimester, setting off both cheers and controversy. Now Mexico's capital city is the largest in Latin America to allow women to have abortions on demand in the first trimester. It also impacts 10 million women in Mexico City and its suburbs who will now have easy access to an abortion, and allows anyone living in Mexico to travel there for abortion services.

The debate in Mexico City, pitting women's rights advocates against the Catholic Church, centered on protecting women's health. Due to the strict laws in Mexico, each year scores of women die or suffer permanent damage to their health due to self-induced or clandestine abortions. Cheers to the legislature in Mexico City for realizing that its primary obligation is to ensure the health and safety of 10 million of its female citizens.

But, sadly, as Mexico and other countries in Latin America step up and liberalize their laws to protect the human rights of women, homosexuals, and other groups, the US appears to be running, shrieking, in the other direction.

The Kaiser Network reports that in the past week three US states have either passed or tried to pass laws further restricting abortion and abortion access. Georgia and South Carolina both continue to press the idea of forcing women to view ultrasound images of the fetus before consenting to an abortion, while Oklahoma's Governor thankfully vetoed a provision that would have banned the use of state money for abortion unless the woman's life was in danger (ignoring the needs of women who have been raped or survived incest--nice one, guys).

It's interesting social commentary that many countries are passing laws on abortion in the interest of protecting women's health, while here in the US we're still tied up arguing whether or not a woman has the right to do what she wants with her own body. Of course the real answer is "yes" on both counts. Last week's Supreme Court dissent hopefully laid the groundwork for a new conversation about the right to abortion in this country...but it won't be easy.