Mexico
Mexico supreme court decriminalizes abortion across country
Decision comes two years after ruling abortion was not a crime in one northern state
Mexico’s supreme court has decriminalized abortion across the country, two years after ruling that abortion was not a crime in one northern state.
That earlier ruling had set off a grinding process of decriminalizing abortion state by state. Last week, the central state of Aguascalientes became the 12th state to decriminalize the procedure.
The court’s sweeping decision on Wednesday comes amid a trend in Latin America of loosening restrictions on abortion, even as access has been limited in parts of the United States.
Mexico City was the first Mexican jurisdiction to decriminalize abortion 15 years ago.
GIRE, a reproductive rights organization based in Mexico City, said the court decided that the portion of the federal penal code that criminalized abortion no longer has any effect.
“No woman or pregnant person, nor any health worker will be able to be punished for abortion,” the group said in a statement.
The impact also means that the federal public health service and any federal health institution must offer abortion to anyone who requests it, GIRE said. The court ordered that the crime of abortion be removed from the federal penal code