Betsy Illingworth

is project manager for Planned Parenthood Global Partners and her writing is often featured on Planned Parenthood's web site. Today some of her writing on Mexico's abortion policy is featured.

Betsy has a history of stretching the truth when it fits her. Today is no different.

Her article says that, "Under Mexican law, these women (women who have been raped) should be allowed access to safe, legal abortion services. However, several obstacles stand in their way.

One issue is Mexico's laws regarding sexual violence. Many Mexican states do not criminalize intimate partner violence, and others criminalize only "repeated" family violence. Mexican law also considers incest to be "consensual" sex. ."

What's your perception after reading that? My perception was that Mexican law asserts that any type of incest is consensual and that girls who have been raped by their fathers (what I usually think of incest as) are not being allowed to have abortion. I doubted this was the case so I looked it up.

According to the pro-choice Human Rights Watch (which Illingworth uses as her source), in Mexico "forced sex between family members is generally defined as rape." Incest is defined as sex between family members if the sex is voluntary. If the sex is forced then that act (which most of think of when we hear the word incest) is considered rape. It's too bad that Betsy didn't feel like sharing these details with the visitors to Planned Parenthood's web site who are left with the incorrect impression that Mexican law defines any sex between family members as consensual.