The topics of Mexican democracy and of abortion rights will be the subjects of two University Forum lectures at UNLV in February.

On Feb. 5, UNLV history professor Thomas Wright will speak about "Mexican Democracy and the 1997 Mexican Election."

In his presentation Wright will discuss the July 1997 election as a major turning point in Mexico's 20th century history. After exercising a virtual monopoly of political power since its founding in 1929, the ruling Partido de la Revolucion Institucional (PRI) party lost its majority in the national Chamber of Deputies, the Mexican congress. At the same time, Wright notes, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who is considered likely to become the first non-PRI president in the 2000 election, won overwhelmingly in the Mexico City mayor's race.

Wright asserts that Mexico has shed its single-party system and emerged as a democracy with a competitive three-party system.

"My Body, My Consent" will be the topic when Northeastern University professor Eileen McDonagh speaks on Feb. 10.

She will offer a restructuring of the abortion debate in which she shifts attention from whether or not the fetus is a human being to what the fetus does.

McDonagh, an associate professor of political science, will examine the argument that a fetus must make use of the body of its mother and can only be allowed to do so with the woman's consent. By extension, McDonagh maintains that women who become pregnant not only have the right to obtain an abortion, but government has a positive obligation to support access to abortion as an extension of the state's police power.

Both presentations are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Barrick Museum of Natural History.

All University Forum lectures are free and open to the public.

The University Forum lecture series is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and underwritten by the UNLV Foundation. For additional information on the series, call 895-3401.