Year of Publication: 2006
Languages Available: English and French
Each year, thousands of girls and women in Mexico become pregnant as a result of rape. Having already suffered one traumatizing violation of their physical integrity, rape survivors often think their situation cannot possibly get any worse. And then some discover they are pregnant. Mexico's laws, at least on paper, take the only humane response: they permit legal abortion after rape. For many rape survivors, however, a maze of administrative hurdles as well as official negligence and obstruction render safe abortion procedures virtually impossible to obtain. Furthermore, survivors of incest are not granted access to legal abortion unless a public prosecutor can and is willing to prove that the intercourse was nonconsensual.