Mexican attorney general challenges abortion law

MEXICO CITY, May 26 (Reuters) The Mexican government has joined the country's top human rights official in trying to overturn in the Supreme Court an abortion law heavily criticized by the Roman Catholic Church.

Last month, Mexico City's parliamentary body legalised abortion in the capital during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, sparking protests both for and against the legislation.

The law, one of the first to legalize abortion in strongly Catholic Latin America, drew fierce opposition from religious figures including Pope Benedict.

The government-appointed attorney general Eduardo Medina Mora said in a statement yesterday that the previous rulings by the Supreme Court showed the law was unconstitutional.

The country's top rights official, Jose Luis Soberanes, also presented a motion in the Supreme Court arguing the law was unconstitutional.

The motions were celebrated by the conservative ruling National Action Party of President Felipe Calderon. The leftist party that passed the law in Mexico city called for Soberanes' resignation.

The court is expected to decide in the next few weeks whether to accept the motions and open a debate.

Eight of the 11 supreme court magistrates must vote in favor to pass motions of unconstitutionality.

Traveling to Brazil recently, Pope Benedict said Catholic politicians who supported the abortion law risked excommunication from the church and should not receive communion.

The Catholic Church says abortion is the taking of a human life and considers it a grave sin.

REUTERS KN VV1017