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Souls Stained with Innocent Blood

Rape of a Mexicali teenager has ignited a heated debate

By Roberto Tejeda

The Bishop of Tijuana on April 24 called for a change in Baja California law to prohibit abortion under any circumstance and to require the state to establish who must support a child born as the result of rape. Current Baja California law permits exceptions, including rape and when there is a risk that a mother might die in the process of giving birth.

Bishop Rafael Romo Munoz said he supports a measure before the Baja California legislature abolishing the exceptions. The bishop's announcement was one of the more recent developments in the controversy following the July 31, 1999 rape of a Mexicali teenager and the refusal of doctors at Mexicali's General Hospital to perform an abortion, even though an order had been issued permitting it.

Anyone in Mexico who reads a newspaper, listens to the radio, or watches television can tell you who "Paulina" is. That is the psuedonym given to the 14-year-old Mexicali rape victim.

In September, after it was determined that she was pregnant, the district attorney gave permission for Paulina to have an abortion. An appointment was scheduled at the General Hospital in Mexicali on October 6, but hospital director Dr. Ismael Avila Iñiguez and other physicians at the hospital refused to perform the abortion. Dr. Avila Iñiguez was briefly detained by authorities for his refusal and threatened by the district attorney with 36 hours in jail and a fine equal to 50 days' pay at minimum wage.

But the doctor told the district attorney that the order should be directed to Dr. Carlos Alberto Astorga, director of the Baja California institute of health. The district attorney gave Avila Iñiguez 48 hours to obey the order or face the threatened jail time and fine. Dr. Astorga would later defend Dr. Avila Iñiguez and the actions of other state government officials after they were criticized in a state human rights report. "We doctors respect life," Dr. Astorga was quoted as saying by several newspapers." That is why they educated us. We are not going to kill or commit homicide just because the prosecutor says we must let the little girl have an abortion, when who decides are the parents."

According to a March 3 report issued by the state attorney general for human rights, two physicians at the hospital tried to persuade the teenager not to go through with the abortion, and two women from a pro-life group went to the hospital and showed the youngster a video of a baby developing in its mother's womb. The two women also warned the teen that, if she had an abortion, she would automatically be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The girl's mother then met with Baja California state attorney general Juan Manuel Salazar Pimentel in an effort to resolve the problem, according to the report. The attorney general opposed the idea of an abortion and suggested that the girl give up the baby for adoption. The attorney general took the girl's mother to a priest, who tried to persuade her not to let her daughter have an abortion, the report said.

Later, after her daughter was re-admitted to the hospital on October 14, the report says a doctor, using a blackboard, outlined the risks involved in an abortion, and told the teen's mother her daughter could end up sterile -- or dead. After spending about 15 minutes discussing the matter with Paulina again that night, her mother told the doctors the family had decided against an abortion. On April 13, Paulina gave birth to a baby boy of 7 pounds, 9 ounces by Caesarean section at a private clinic in Mexicali. Pro-life groups paid Paulina's $800+ medical bill, and provided the family with money for diapers, milk, medicine, pediatric exams, and other necessities.

When feminists in Mexicali learned of Paulina's case in late October of 1999, they filed a complaint with the state attorney general for human rights alleging that Paulina, as a victim of rape, had been denied her "right" to an abortion. Other critics charged that Paulina was the victim of "closed mindedness" and "pro-life fanatics." The findings of this attorney general, issued in the report of March 3, were critical of everyone involved in preventing the abortion, concluding they had "contaminated" Paulina's ability to decide by providing her and her family only with information against abortion and by not advising them that the abortion could have been performed in a private hospital or clinic. "It is impossible to find a favorable excuse for the behavior presented by these officials," the report concluded.

The report made a series of recommendations to Baja California Governor Alejandro González Alcocer, including that the state pay Paulina and her family for "moral damages," that the state pay all the expenses associated with the pregnancy, that the state provide housing, clothing, health care, education and living expenses for mother and child "until she is in a situation where she can care for herself," that civil and criminal action be considered against the state officials involved, and that the state provide training in medical ethics and the rights of patients for hospital staff.

The governor agreed that the state would pay some damages to the family and that the state would institute the classes called for in the report. He insisted that no one in his administration had done anything illegal or improper. When confronted by reporters after the attorney general for human rights' report was made public, Governor González Alcocer answered, "It's an ethical-moral question for doctors, and up until now I have stayed out of it. I can't hold a gun to a doctor and make him perform an abortion."

In the state's official response to the allegations contained in the report, Jorge Ramos, state government secretary for Baja California, said both the attorney general and the Baja California institute of health had acted properly and legally. The decision not to go through with the abortion was freely made by the teen and her mother, he said. Since that response on March 13, the girl's family has filed a criminal complaint against state officials alleging that the state has failed to pay any damages. The complaint is pending.

Paulina's case has reached just about everywhere in Mexico, including all the way to the troubled southern state of Chiapas. There, the newly-named bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Monsignor Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, criticized politicians for supporting abortion, "With the aim of getting votes to win, they don't care if they stain their souls with innocent blood."

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