Choice Ireland

TIJUANA, Mexico - Mexico's Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear a challenge to recent changes in the Baja California state constitution that grant legal protection to children from the moment of conception.

The court accepted for review an appeal filed by Baja California state human rights officials, who argue a constitutional clause enacted Dec. 26 appears intended to overturn the current legal status for abortions in cases of rape or danger to the mother's life.

"An individual is granted legal protection from the moment in which they are conceived," according to the new version of Article 7 of the state's constitution.

No woman has yet been denied an abortion under the clause, and legislators who supported the change said it was intended, not to ban current practices, but to head off any attempt to enact the death penalty or a broad legalization of abortion on demand.

The dispute comes 10 years after the "Paulina" scandal, in which Baja California medical authorities refused to give a 13-year-old rape victim the abortion she was entitled to by law. She later gave birth to the child.

The Supreme Court gave no deadline for hearing the appeal, filed by the state's attorney general's office for human rights. The office argued the clause violated women's rights to choice in matters of birth control.