Despite widespread protests and a President whose conservative National Action Party opposes abortion, Mexico's supreme court has upheld a law legalizing abortion up to twelve weeks in Mexico City. Mexico City's leftist government passed the law in April 2007, and yesterday, the Supreme Court voted 8-3 in favor of upholding it, even though anti-abortion activists claim that because Mexico's constitution protects the rights of fetuses, allowing abortion is unconstitutional. The LA Times reports, "The federal attorney general's office and Mexico's human rights commission lodged the formal challenge. The ruling, which came after six public hearings, pleased abortion rights advocates in a heavily Catholic nation." Mexico City is now one of the few places in heavily-Catholic Latin America, the paper notes, where women can have a legal abortion if they have not been victims of rape or incest.Even though this is a clear legislative victory for pro-choice Mexicans, there are still many roadblocks to a safe and legal termination. A lot of Mexico City gynecologists have declared themselves "conscientious objectors" and are refusing to perform abortions, so the doctors who do perform pregnancy termination procedures are swamped with work. Even so: in the year that abortions have been legal in the Mexican capital, more than 12,600 women have had abortions in public clinics. And that is real progress. Director of the international abortion rights group Ipas, Raffaela Schiavon, who was advising the Mexico City government, says, "This made history in Mexico and the rest of the region…It opens the road for all of Latin America to start visualizing legal paths to abortion." Mexican Supreme Court Upholds Legalized Abortion Law [LAT] Abortion Rights Upheld In Mexico City [Kansas City Star]