Mexico City, Mexico (LifeNews.com) -- The decision by the highest court in Mexico to uphold the law allowing abortions up to 12 weeks into pregnancy is drawing sharp criticism from leading pro-life groups. The Mexico Supreme Court voted 8-3 this past week to uphold a federal district law allowing abortions and paying for them at taxpayer expense through the government health care program.

Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life tells LifeNews.com that the ruling ignores the negative impact of abortion on women and is a devastating step toward abortion on demand for other Latin American nations.

Yoest’s organization was one of the American pro-life groups to file an amicus brief with the Mexico Supreme Court in the case that could have ramifications throughout the region.

"We are dismayed the Mexican Supreme Court would ignore the overwhelming evidence that abortion hurts women. Upholding this law demonstrates a total lack of concern for the health and welfare of Mexican women,” she said.

AUL vice president and legal director Denise Burke added that “other Latin American countries will be pressured by abortion advocates -- many from outside Latin America -- to liberalize their abortion laws and put women at risk."

"Latin American countries currently have some of the most protective abortion laws in the world," continued Burke. "But they are facing increased pressure to cave into the demands of extremist groups like Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights."

AUL's amicus brief detailed medical data conclusively establishing that abortion results in devastating physical and psychological harm, including death. Since April 2007, when the law was enacted in Mexico City, at least 22 women have been injured and 8 women have died from complications related to their abortions, the group maintains.

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, the president of Human Life International, weighed in on the decision and called it a day of infamy for the Mexican people.

“Men like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata may be remembered as some of the worst criminals of Mexican history, but yesterday's vote of the Mexican Supreme Court will make Villa's and Zapata's killings seem like so much child's play,” he said.

“Reminiscent of the US Supreme Court decision in 1973 … [members of the court] consigned themselves to the annals of history as the worst of their country's killers,” he added. “They gave Mexico the disreputable distinction of being the first country in Latin America to legalize abortion on demand, and in fact, if the likely ‘domino effect’ of abortion legalization in the Hispanic world follows, they will be guilty of the innocent blood of a whole continent.”

Euteneuer said recent surveys of millions of Mexicans indicated that at lest 65 percent of the people were totally against the legalization of abortion.

“The Supreme Court just simply ignored them - which is another way of saying that democracy is essentially meaningless in Mexico,” he said.

Euteneuer is also upset that the high court ignored language in the nation’s Constitution that enumerates a right to life "from the moment of fertilization.”

He said the Catholic bishops of Mexico were right in their recent television ads prior to the decision that when a society opens up a debate on abortion, what they are doing, in effect, is debating the very future of a nation."

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