Thousands in Mexico march in defense of the family and children

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 2, 2023 / 16:45 pm (CNA).

Thousands of people demonstrated in front of the Congress of the Union, Mexico’s federal legislature, earlier this week demanding that lawmakers draft and pass laws protecting the true rights of Mexican women and children.

The march, held in Mexico City, was called by the Citizens’ Initiative and the National Front for the Family (FNF) platforms.

According to a statement, Rosa Mary Morales, spokeswoman for the FNF, charged during the massive demonstration that some groups seek to “impose their ideas and seek to sow fear in legislators, the people, and even the media.”

“They don’t understand that Mexico is a [different reality] and that we all want peace and tranquility for ourselves and our children,” she said.

Morales said that the pro-family platforms “are against harming children with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and the amputation of healthy body parts that cause irreversible damage to children.”

The march participants expressed their support for bills such as those introduced by Congresswoman América Rangel in the Mexico City Congress and Mónica Rodríguez Della Vecchia in the Puebla state legislature. Both bills seek to prohibit and penalize hormonal and surgical sex-change treatments for children.

In addition, they encouraged federal congresswoman María Teresa Castell to introduce a similar bill in the national legislature.

During the march, participants also demanded that the right of parents to choose the type of education they want for their children be respected. In addition, marchers demanded that women be valued and respected, and that terms such as “pregnant persons” not be used.

Ruth Sánchez, the National Coordinator of Women of Initiative, stressed during the event: “I am a woman and I demand, on behalf of all the women of Mexico, that our position as women be respected. We cannot be erased and reduced to the simple term of pregnant persons. No one can be what they are not. One is a woman from the womb of our mothers.”

“We are women and we not only menstruate or gestate, we also think, work, support, and contribute from different situations to society, to our families, and that gives us the right to be taken into account and that everything that cost us decades of struggle be respected,” she said.

The pro-family advocates also opposed the package of reforms on “substantive equality” and “gender equity” that the Congress of the Union has had among its pending issues for some years and that includes changes to the constitution that would open the doors to abortion and gender ideology.

Speaking during the demonstration, former senator Lisbeth Hernández demanded that Mexican legislators “respect and observe international treaties and not amend our constitution, that they always legislate from a family perspective, that they respect and promote the family consisting of a man and a woman.”

“And, above all, given the high rate of violence that our country is going through, that the right to life be recognized and promoted, as well as the emotional stability of our children,” she urged.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.