Mexico City legalises abortion

Mexico City has defied the church in the world's second-largest Roman Catholic country by legalising abortion.

Terminations can now be carried out in the Mexican capital, one of the largest cities in the world, but not anywhere else in the country.

As police and demonstrators clashed outside parliament, politicians voted 46 to 19 to pass a leftist-sponsored bill allowing abortions in the first three months of pregnancy.

Opinion polls show Mexico's population of 107 million, of which some 90 per cent are Catholic, is split over abortion. Supporters claim 2,000 women die each year having resorted to unhygienic back-street clinics.

Last week Pope Benedict urged bishops in the country to oppose abortion and pro-life campaigners are likely to challenge the move in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, church leaders have threatened to excommunicate those who voted to back abortion, including politicians from the Party of the Democratic Revolution which backed lifting the ban.

The Archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco, said: "They will get the penalty of excommunication. That is not revenge, it is just what happens in the case of serious sins."

Next month, Pope Benedict is to visit Brazil, the country with most Catholics, in his first trip to Latin America since becoming Pontiff.

Roman Catholic President Felipe Calderon has largely avoided speaking on the issue but First Lady Margarita Zavala entered the debate at the weekend, condemning abortion in a rare political comment.

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