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Mexican Women Demanding Legalized Abortion Clash With Police

The protesters threw molotov cocktails at officers in Mexico City on Monday during a demonstration marking International Safe Abortion Day.
Reuters
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MEXICO CITY, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Women charged police lines and threw Molotov cocktails at officers in Mexico City on Monday during protests demanding the legalization of abortion in the majority Roman Catholic country.

The protesters, clad in the green bandanas that have become the symbol of the pro-choice movement in Latin America, gathered in Mexico’s capital to mark International Safe Abortion Day, which is celebrated each year on Sept. 28.

Police, many of them female officers, responded by spraying plumes of tear gas at the women, some of whom wielded hammers, and threw bottles and paint.

At least one officer was briefly engulfed in flames after being hit by a Molotov cocktail, before colleagues doused the fire with an extinguisher, television images showed.

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Member of a feminist collective throws a molotov cocktail during a march to mark the International Safe Abortion Day in Mexico City, Mexico September 28, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Carlos Jasso / Reuters

Abortion is illegal in Mexico outside the capital city and the southern state of Oaxaca, which legalized the medical procedure last year. In the rest of Mexico, abortion is banned except under certain circumstances, such as rape.

Abortion law has been receiving renewed attention after the death in the United States of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a pioneering women’s rights advocate, which has cast doubt over the future of legal abortion there.

(Reporting by Carlos Jasso in Mexico City; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Matthew Lewis)

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Before You Go

Strange Places For Anti-Abortion Measures
Sharia(01 of08)
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A week before North Carolina Republicans turned to motorcycle safety, they attached proposed anti-abortion measures to a bill that would also have guarded the state from "foreign law." The bill read much like a number of other anti-Sharia proposals that have popped up around the nation, except this one contained a host of restrictions on abortion coverage and providers. (credit:AP)
Motorcycles(02 of08)
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When their abortion-Sharia combination effort failed, North Carolina Republicans concocted a new plan: Tack the anti-abortion measure onto something perhaps even less related.That bill was initially meant to increase penalties on drivers that threatened motorcyclists with their actions on the road. As of this week, it would also impose strict standards on abortion clinics and prohibit sex-selective abortions. (credit:Getty Images)
Flood Insurance(03 of08)
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) injected abortion politics into an otherwise uncontroversial flood insurance bill in 2012. The legislation, initially meant to boost the National Flood Insurance Program on the cusp of hurricane season, was expected to pass, until Paul slid in a measure claiming that life begins at fertilization.Paul claimed he was justified in adding the amendment because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wouldn't allow a freestanding vote on fetal personhood. His measure eventually succeeded in stalling the legislation. (credit:AP)
Cybersecurity(04 of08)
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Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) filed an amendment to a 2012 cybersecurity bill that would have imposed a 20-week abortion ban in Washington, D.C.The cybersecurity bill ultimately failed, in part because senators couldn't reach a deal on a host of amendments that had been appended to the bill. (credit:AP)
Homeland Security(05 of08)
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Even a Homeland Security appropriations bill couldn't escape the reach of anti-abortion Republicans earlier this year. Attached to the GOP-controlled House's $46 billion spending bill was Rep. John Carter's (R-Texas) measure to block ICE from using agency funding to provide abortion services for detainees except in the case of rape, incest or if the life of the mother would be endangered.According to Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman, that was already department policy, and Homeland Security had not paid for abortion services since its 2003 creation. (credit:Getty Images)
Transportation(06 of08)
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A very passable transportation bill was thrown a curveball in 2012 when Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) submitted an amendment that would have overridden the Obama administration's new contraception coverage rule and allowed any employer to refuse to cover any kind of health care service by citing "moral reasons." The Senate eventually rejected the proposal, and after months of wrangling, the bill was passed by both the House and Senate. (credit:Getty Images)
Agricultural Subsidies(07 of08)
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In 2011, then-Sen. Jim Demint (R-S.C.) took aim at Planned Parenthood with an amendment to an appropriations bill dealing with agricultural subsidies.His bill would have ensured that federal funding toward telemedicine services couldn't have been used by the women's health services provider. Planned Parenthood has tested a system that allows women seeking abortions to connect remotely with a qualified physician to discuss using mifepristone, or RU-486. Trials done in Iowa months before DeMint's amendment showed that the practice was safe. (credit:Getty Images)
Business Tax Credits(08 of08)
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In 2012, Republicans in the New Hampshire state House tried to sneak an anti-abortion provision into an unrelated bill regarding tax credits for businesses. Earlier in the year, lawmakers had voted down a GOP attempt to pass the abortion restrictions by themselves. The state Senate ultimately shot down the second attempt as well. (credit:Getty Images)
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