PopDev Different Takes Paper Series

Most Americans believe that the U.S. wrote the book on democracy, despite the lack of voting rights for African-Americans until the 1965 Voting Rights Act, just in time for the Bicentennial celebrations. But with last year's Presidential election and its aftermath we have a President who won neither the popular vote nor the Electoral College vote had Florida votes been properly counted and minority voters not disenfranchised. Instead we have a court-elected President, thanks to a partisan conservative majority in two decisions, based on rationales which most legal observers find specious.

Very few people today in the U.S. would openly identify as eugenicists, yet eugenic assumptions are widespread, interacting with other biological determinisms that influence the fields of science, health, economics, politics and popular culture. Like many other powerful ideas, the power of eugenic ideology lies partly in its capacity to not draw attention to itself, to appear commonplace.

It is evident that the scientific arguments, on both sides, on the beginning of human life are very interesting... But it is also true that none of these arguments takes into consideration the immense majority of women who face the dilemma of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. What women think, feel, want, is relative to their lives and their particular experience in the world. Human life is much more than a biological event. We are the only beings that can plan our own future. Hence it is legitimate to defend what we have been, but above all, what we want to be. It is for that life: aware, free, full, human that in this case has a beautiful female face. that I request your vote in favor. With this speech, the historic April 24, 2007 legislative session closed and Mexico City's representatives voted to decriminalize abortion up to twelve weeks of pregnancy. Despite enormous pressure from conservative groups, there were 46 votes in favor, 19 against and one abstention, with representatives of six political parties approving the reform.