Pro-life advocates in Mexico are speaking out against a leaked draft copy of Mexico’s revised National Criminal Code, which would legalize abortion throughout the country at all stages of pregnancy.

The draft copy, which was leaked to the press in recent days, is expected to be presented to Mexico’s federal congress in the coming weeks. The new criminal code is one of 14 reforms announced recently by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The document omits the entire section of the current code that criminalizes abortion and establishes the penalties for the practitioner and pregnant woman involved.

The current Federal Criminal Code imposes penalties ranging from one to three years in prison for anyone performing an abortion, although the penalty can be to eight years in prison “if physical or moral violence is involved.” A doctor or midwife who performs an abortion can also lose their medical license from two to five years.

A mother who consents to an abortion, or voluntarily induces an abortion, incurs a maximum penalty of one year in prison, except in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is at risk.

Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, explained that the creation of the National Criminal Code would eliminate all local criminal codes throughout the country.

As a result, abortion would be eliminated as a category of crime, “which would make this procedure non-punishable throughout the republic and at all stages,” Cortés told ACI Prensa, Catholic News Agency’s Spanish language partner agency….

The above comes from a Jan. 22 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.