Mexico to pay teen who was denied abortion after rape

MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials said Tuesday that they will pay a legal settlement to a woman who was prevented from having an abortion after being raped at 13, a decision hailed by women's-rights groups as a landmark victory.

Rape victims are the only women allowed to obtain abortions legally in Mexico if their lives are not at risk.

Paulina Ramirez was raped by a heroin addict in her Mexicali home, and sought a legal abortion in 1999, but numerous Baja California state officials and public health care workers pressured her to carry her pregnancy to term.

Anti-abortion activists visited Paulina at the hospital, showing her pictures of aborted fetuses in a bid to persuade her to change her mind. The Baja California state attorney general personally drove her to see a priest who told her abortion was a sin.

The settlement calls for the victim to be paid about $40,000 in legal, medical fees and reparations. The victim, who is now a 19-year-old woman raising her son as a single mother, will also receive a government education stipend for her son's education through high school.

In addition, Mexican federal and state officials agreed to take steps to ensure that local prosecutors and health care workers comply in the future with laws that guarantee rape victims a right to abortion.

"This is a triumph for all women," said Marta Lamas, one of Mexico's leading feminists and founder of the nonprofit Reproductive Choice Information Group. "After six years, the government has finally acknowledged that it denied this young woman her rights."

Mexico, along with many other Latin American countries, has extremely strict abortion laws. Teenagers raped by family members are not allowed to seek legal abortions — in most Mexican states, the law defines incest as consensual sex. The age of consensual sex in most of Mexico is 12.

Women's rights groups in the United States and Mexico had sued in local courts with little success. In 2002 they filed a petition seeking redress with the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an international tribunal whose authority is recognized by Mexico.

In the agreement, the Mexican government recognized that Baja state officials violated the national law.

"This is the most important legal victory for women in Mexico in a decade," said Luisa Cabal of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the groups that represented Paulina before the tribunal.

Cuba is currently the only Latin American country allowing abortion on demand.

In announcing the settlement at a Mexico City news conference, the Washington-based Human Rights Watch also reported the results of a study on the difficulties Mexican rape victims face in seeking abortions. The report detailed the stories of numerous rape victims who were cajoled and threatened into carrying their pregnancies.

The law that allowed victims of rape to obtain legal abortions "is broadly supported by the Mexican people, but it is a right that is rarely respected in practice," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

The group's investigators cited the case of a 25-year-old Mexico City woman told by health workers to order a coffin and call a hearse to take away her aborted fetus.