A significant social advance that goes against the grain of its American neighbor. Mexico confirmed on Wednesday September 6 its desire to decriminalize abortion nationally, two years after a first decision by the Supreme Court. The Mexican Supreme Court has ruled that the “legal system that criminalizes abortion in the Federal Penal Code is unconstitutional” because it “violates the human rights of women and persons of gestational capacity.”
Just two years ago, on September 7, 2021, the same Supreme Court had already ruled that the criminalization of abortion was unconstitutional. In doing so, the Court invalidated the article of the Penal Code of Coahuila (one of the 32 states of the Federation) providing for a prison sentence for women who voluntarily abort. Abortion is already decriminalized in a dozen of the 32 states that make up Mexico.
It all started in 2007 in the capital Mexico City, the first jurisdiction in Latin America to authorize abortion. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that women can challenge state laws that continue to criminalize abortion.
“All women and people capable of gestation will be able to have access to abortion in federal health institutions,” welcomed the Information Group for Selected Reproduction (GIRE). Mexico, population nearly 130 million, is an 80% Catholic country. The separation of Church and State was proclaimed as early as the Reformation of 1857.
On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, who since 1973 had guaranteed the constitutional right of American women to have an abortion, and gave each state the freedom to legislate on the matter.
Since then, the country has been fractured between the twenty or so states that have banned or strictly restricted access to abortion, mainly located in the south and center of the country, and those on the coasts that have adopted new guarantees.