Chants of “Yes to life, no to abortion!”, “Life is a victory!”, and “We are the pro-life generation!” rang out this past weekend in the streets of downtown Mexico City, where young people turned out for the March for Life.
The event took place the day after the anniversary of the law passed on April 24, 2007, when the capital cityʼs government legalized abortion on demand for up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
According to the Mexico City Secretariat of Public Health, nearly 300,000 abortions were performed in the countryʼs capital between 2007 and 2025.
The 2007 decision paved the way for similar laws in other states, such that 24 out of 31 states across the country currently have loosened restrictions on abortion.
To demonstrate against these regulations, groups of friends, families, young people mobilized by parishes, and other participants began gathering early at the Monument to the Revolution. From there, the contingent set off toward the Mexico City Legislature in a march that, according to organizers, drew a crowd of more than 2,000 people.
Throughout the route, young people set the pace with drums, chants, and slogans. Many wore blue handkerchiefs and T-shirts bearing pro-life messages and held signs in defense of motherhood and the unborn.
Among those in attendance was 22-year-old Macarena Muñoz, who told ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, that she came to demonstrate that there are still “pro-life young people here in Mexico and in all the states who want to see these laws changed, and who do not want abortion to be decriminalized.”
She said it is important to show society that there are young people who understand that “to defend any other right such as women’s rights, one must first defend the intrinsic value: the value of life.”
Other states begin to permit abortion
Although the first decriminalization of abortion in Mexico took place in 2007 in the capital, the most significant gain for laws allowing abortion occurred during the six-year term of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which began in 2018, when the political party MORENA secured a majority in various state legislatures and pushed for laws allowing abortion in 12 states.
Subsequently, with the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum, also a MORENA party member, on Oct. 1, 2024, and backed by support from her party in the state legislatures, new laws permitting abortion were passed in Jalisco, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Mexico, Chiapas, Nayarit, Chihuahua, Campeche, Yucatán, and Tabasco states.
The march brought together people from various regions of the country. According to the organizers, participants came from at least 20 cities.
One of them was Regina Hinojosa, 24, who traveled from Puebla. Speaking with ACI Prensa, she lamented that during the time abortion has been legal in Mexico City and other states, “there hasn’t been anything that could be positive for women.”
She maintained that above any other agenda, Mexican women “deserve more laws in favor of their well-being and that of their babies.”
Juan Pablo Perea, 21, a native of Michoacán, also participated. In an interview with ACI Prensa, he stated that he had traveled with the intention of reminding others that “it falls to us young people to fight for this because we are no longer merely the future of the country but its present; and if we do nothing at this time, no one else will.”
Although he acknowledged that this is a “struggle that, regrettably, currently seems to be losing ground,” he encouraged other young people to get involved, pointing out that “without life, there is no future.”
Young people don’t want these deadly laws
Some pro-life legislators also participated in the march, such as Juliana Rosario Hernández Quintanar of the National Action Party, a Querétaro state representative who has championed legislative initiatives such as declaring March 25 the “Day of Life.”
Hernández told ACI Prensa that more laws are needed to protect vulnerable persons including the unborn and therefore called upon her colleagues not to give up, for “there is no better cause than fighting for life, because life is the future, life is hope, and today in Mexico, we have a great demand for life [to be protected].”
Furthermore, she expressed the view that Mexico bears a “great debt” in this regard, assuring that as politicians, “we are here to defend these causes, the ones that truly matter and the ones that will allow us to make a lasting difference.”
Youth at the forefront
Another attendee was Rodrigo Baños, 20, who issued a call to other young people to participate with “attitude and determination” in the defense of human rights, particularly those of women and the unborn.
The young man also told ACI Prensa that, following the example of previous generations, “now it is our turn, this is our moment to go out and fight” for the right to life. He encouraged his contemporaries, reminding them: “We are young; we have nothing to lose. We must give it our all.”
![“Every life has a purpose, let [its heart] beat!” reads a banner at the March for Life in Mexico on April 25, 2026. | Credit: Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico](https://res.cloudinary.com/ewtn/image/upload/v1777307132/ewtn-news/en/provida26426-4-1777213059_fgyjfe.webp)
At the close of the event , a manifesto was read from the stage ending on the same note, with a message addressed to Mexican youth and to “those who sought to convince us to give up.”
“We refuse; we are a generation that does not grow accustomed, that does not sell out, that does not remain silent, that does not surrender. We will not give up. We will not tire of defending the truth. We will not stop loving Mexico.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
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