Part IV: The International Situation

4. Central and South America

Largely due to the area’s strongly Catholic culture, the situation with regards to the life issues in general in Central and South America is considerably more hopeful than in North America, Britain or Europe. Some countries This position of cultural strength combined with the poverty of the Latin American nations and their dependence on international aid, however, has made them particular targets of pro-abortion and anti-Catholic elements in the international community.

An international abortion lobby group, the Center for Reproductive Rights^[1], admitted in 2006 that they and similar groups were counting on the courts as a means to by-pass legislatures to bring legalized abortion into the mainly Catholic countries of South and Central America. Most of these groups are funded by large international donors such as the Hewlett Packard Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and a host of others. They enjoy a great deal of freedom and support through their recognition by such international bodies as the United Nations.

In their 2006 press conference, the Center for Reproductive Rights group highlighted the notorious “Paulina” case in Mexico as an example of the method of using a single court case to create a wedge in a country’s abortion restrictions. The Mexican case was built around the 1999 rape of a then-13 year-old Mexican girl, Paulina del Carmen Jacinto Ramírez. Paulina and her family were convinced by doctors and pro-life counselors at Mexicali's General Hospital not to abort her child. Pro-life groups helped Paulina and her family with child care expenses.

Six months after the birth, Paulina was approached by feminists affiliated with the international abortion lobby who had launched a human rights complaint claiming that Paulina had been denied her "right" to an abortion. In March 2006, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, the legal arm of the U.S. pro-abortion movement, won a case at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Mexican government agreed to guarantee access to abortion in the case of pregnancies due to rape.

This small example serves to illustrate the determination of groups whose stated goals are to expand abortion by any means fair or foul and to sever the traditional ties of the people to the Catholic Church[2], which remains the largest provider of charitable care in the areas as well as being the strongest voice for the protection of the unborn.

The effort to disestablish the Catholic Church does not stop at abortion but expands to other areas including the Early Life Issues. Promotion in Latin America of contraception, sterilization, abortion drugs such as RU 486, artificial reproduction, cloning and stem cell research are of particular interest to these groups, on all of which the Church is the primary locus of opposition.

Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, El Salvador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras and Nicaragua, all countries whose populations hold strongly pro-life views, have all been under heavy pressure, including threats of whithholding international aid, to bring their laws into line with the prevailing pro-abortion legal philosophies in the US.

In a report[3] on the advance of the abortion agenda in Latin America for the Population Research Institute, Joseph A. D'Agostino wrote, “A tyrannical global revolution in law is underway, and the leaders of this international movement have targeted the small, turbulent country of Colombia. By their own admission, they want Colombia to be on the leading edge of legalizing abortion in Latin America.”

Argentina[4]: The Argentine Constitution recognizes the humanity of the unborn child "from the moment of conception." In 2001, Argentina was one of a list of countries that proposed a resolution to the United Nations to outlaw all forms of human cloning. Embryonic stem cell research is permitted, but all forms of cloning (“reproductive” and therapeutic) are banned. The law specifically states that experiments concerning cloning of human cells in order to generate human beings are prohibited. In May 2004,

Brazil: Embryonic stem cell research as well as therapeutic and “reproductive” cloning is banned. The current policy prohibits the genetic manipulation of the germline (or a gene which can be passed to ones offspring) and intervention of the human genetic material in vivo. As of 1995, the Brazilian Biosafety Technical Commission of the Ministry of Science and Technology concluded that this law inherently bans human cloning. The law is currently under review.

Chile: Embryonic stem cell research is not specifically prohibited, but therapeutic and “reproductive” cloning and the funding of such activities are as of 1993. This law is currently under review. The law states that the cloning of human beings and interventions which results in the creation of a human being genetically identical to another is prohibited.

Colombia: Embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are permitted, but “reproductive” cloning is banned. The criminal code (2000) prohibits fertilization of a human ovum with intent other than procreation and prohibits genetic manipulation for the purpose of “reproductive” cloning. The code does allow the fertilization of human ova for research and diagnostic purposes, if they is a therapeutic goal.

Costa Rica: Embryonic stem cell research as well as therapeutic and “reproductive” cloning is banned. Any manipulation of an embryo's genetic code is prohibited, as well as any experimentation on the embryo (two laws as of 1995 and 1998). Costa Rica has led the Latin American resistance to foreign pressure to introduce pro-abortion and other forms of anti-life legislation. In February 2004, Dr. Abel Pacheco, President of the Republic of Costa Rica, was awarded the Kolbe Prize for Peace by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), a UN-based nongovernmental organization.

Ecuador: Embryonic stem cell research as well as therapeutic and “reproductive” cloning is banned. Research on human embryos (and therefore cloning) is prohibited as of June 1998.

Mexico: Embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are permitted, but “reproductive” cloning is banned (the laws were just amended in 2004).

Panama: Embryonic stem cell research is not specifically prohibited, but therapeutic and “reproductive” cloning and the funding of such activities are as of 2004.

Peru: Embryonic stem cell research is not specifically prohibited, “reproductive” cloning are banned. Fertilization of a human ovum with intent other than procreation is prohibited, as well as human cloning (General Health Law, 1997).

Uruguay: Embryonic stem cell research is not specifically prohibited, but therapeutic and “reproductive” cloning are as of 2003.

Venezuela: The law states that human cloning is prohibited, as is manipulating human cells or genetic materials by cloning in order to create an identical human being, pre-embryo (blastocyst), or embryo.

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[1] US Abortion Activists Forcing Abortion on Mexico through Courts http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06030808.html

See also LifeSiteNews.com’s three-part series on the use of such “hard cases” by abortion lobbyists to undermine legislation that protects the unborn.

Pro-Abortion Group in Nicaragua Caught Aiding Rapist Escape Criminal Investigation http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07081602.html

[2] See “The UN Quietly Wages War on Religion” http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2001/aug/010820a.html

[3] “Pro-Abortion Court Revolution Targets Colombia” September 30, 2005 http://www.pop.org/main.cfm?EID=866

[4] Information in this section was taken from “World Human Cloning Policies” By Kathryn Wheat and Kirstin Matthews, Ph.D. at Rice University. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~neal/stemcell/World.pdf