Co-Chairs:
Lorna Brett Howard & John Howard
Margaret Munzer Loeb & Daniel S. Loeb
Fiona Howe Rudin & Eric Rudin
Michael Wolkowitz & Hope Holiner
Amy Fine Collins

Chairs Emeritae:

Lisa Perry
Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn
Ann Tenenbaum

Honoree:

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubon

In April, 2007, Mayor Ebrard came to international acclaim by decriminalizing abortion in Mexico City. The most conservative of estimates show that an average of 110,000 women seek illegal abortions each year in Mexico, of whom an average of 3,500 die from the dangerous conditions. Mayor Ebrard is working to reduce those numbers by making Mexico City a haven for women who need safe, legal, affordable abortion care. With abortion still illegal in the rest of Mexico and throughout most of Latin America, there are reports of women traveling from as far as 1,000 miles away to receive abortion care in Mexico City. 

In this heavily Catholic country, Mayor Ebrard has often been the target of anti-choice vitriol, and the Catholic Church has even threatened to excommunicate him. A leading anti-choice activist in Mexico has even said, “The Aztecs sacrificed prisoners of war, but not even they killed as many people as Marcelo Ebrard is killing now.” 

But Mayor Ebrard has remained steadfast in his support of women’s reproductive choice and health. As a result of Mayor Ebrard’s boldness in decriminalizing abortion in the Mexican capital, Mexico has experienced a sea change in statistics and attitudes.

Keynote Speaker:
Linda Greenhouse, former Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times