The Baby War (or fetus war, or embryo war, or sperm and egg war...)

This week the Catholic Church threatened to excommunicate Spanish politicians for their vote legalizing abortion in Spain up to 14 weeks. At the same time, back in Mexico the Archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco, has admitted to entering into agreements with the PRI to go after both abortion and contraception in Mexico.

Let's remember that just a generation ago under Echeverria the Catholic bishops tacitly supported the birth control option for the poor. Heck, the PRI even offered birth control in the CONASUPO subsidized markets for a time. For the nation that gave the world the birth control pill and pretty freely embraced it in the late '70s it is a real whiplash situation to see even the PRI working against contraception and abortion.

However, I was interested to see a study by a Columbia University public health professor (Jennifer Hirsch) in which she demonstrates that rural Mexican women (the group that was the most resistant or misinformed about contraception in the 1970s) is using contraception and finding that it meshes perfectly well for them and their Catholicism. If the PRI and the PAN are gunning to make this a big political issue in 2012 it may be more of a flop than a flyer if Hirsch's study holds true.

At any rate this seems like a full court push against contraception and abortion in Latin America, as one of my colleagues here in Texas got a full sermon on abortion and contraception in Mexico in his East Texas parish on Miguel Pro's feast day a couple weeks ago.