Mexico – What Comes After Decriminalizing Abortion?

Mexico’s supreme court handed down a victory for reproductive health care. Translating it into increased access is a different story.

BY MYRIAM VIDAL VALERO
OCT 10, 2023

In 2019, Aurelia García Cruceño, an 18-year-old Indigenous woman living in Guerrero, Mexico, had a miscarriage. The bleeding was so intense, according to news reports, that she lost consciousness. When she woke up in a hospital bed, she noticed that her hands and feet were handcuffed. The Guerrero Prosecutor’s Office detained her for allegedly having ended her baby’s life. She hadn’t known she was pregnant.

Aurelia’s case is tragic, and it isn’t an anomaly. It demonstrates a series of interconnected failures between Mexico’s health and legal systems, which too often accept gender violence as the status quo. Time and again, these systems restrict women’s access to reproductive health care and education—and then punish them for the consequences of their lack of access, or for trying to seek it.

Continued: https://slate.com/technology/2023/10/abortion-decriminalization-mexico-challenges.html

Brazil´s Supreme Court A Step Closer to Decriminalizing Abortion

Chance to Finally Uphold Women’s and Pregnant People´s Rights

Regina Tamés, Cristina Quijano Carrasco, Human Rights Watch
Oct 5, 2023

Brazil’s Supreme Court is now considering a case that could decriminalize abortion in the country up to 12 weeks of gestation.

This case had previously been on hold since 2018, when the Court held a public hearing at which Human Rights Watch urged it to consider Brazil’s obligations under international law in reaching its ruling. Brazil’s current legislation regulating abortion, which dates to 1940, is incompatible with the country's human rights obligations. Abortion is criminalized except in cases of sexual violence, when the life of the pregnant woman is in danger, or when a fatal fetal condition known as anencephaly is detected.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/05/brazils-supreme-court-step-closer-decriminalizing-abortion

Widening access to quality abortion care from the grassroots up

Testimonies of how access to quality abortion make a difference in the lives of women and girls

28 September 2023
World Health Organization

This year, International Safe Abortion Day profiles the unstoppable movement that is shaped by the diverse sexual and reproductive health community around the world, dedicated to protecting and promoting access to abortion care that is safe, affordable, timely and dignified.

In a series of captivating stories, the World Health Organization together with IBP Network highlights some important key players in this abortion care movement: local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs). In many parts of the world, these organizations are successfully translating WHO’s research and evidence-based recommendations into concrete actions that support women and girls’ agency and right to health.

Continued: https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/widening-access-to-quality-abortion-care-from-the-grassroots-up

Brazil senators call for plebiscite on abortion; Supreme Court considers decriminalization

September 26, 2023

Brasilia (EFE) – A group of Brazilian senators announced Tuesday that they will call for a referendum so the entire population can decide on abortion, just as the Supreme Court deliberates on whether to approve its decriminalization until 12 weeks of gestation.

Senator Rogério Marinho said in statements to journalists that the initiative has the support of 45 senators, the number needed to secure the approval of a legislative decree to convene the plebiscite.

Continued: https://www.laprensalatina.com/brazil-senators-call-for-plebiscite-on-abortion-supreme-court-considers-decriminalization/

26.09.2023

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Mexican court ruling upholding women’s right to abortion shows global trend better than US Roe v Wade decision

September 19, 2023
Sydney Calkin

It may surprise you to learn that, over the past 30 years, no fewer than 60 countries have liberalised their abortion laws while only four have rolled back abortion rights. The United States is, of course, one of the latter group that has recently restricted women’s access to abortion.

Because the US looms so large in international news coverage of abortion, casual observers often assume that anti-abortion reforms in the US signal a broader global trend or will trigger a domino effect of abortion restrictions. But this view is misguided. It’s important to explore why this is.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/mexican-court-ruling-upholding-womens-right-to-abortion-shows-global-trend-better-than-us-roe-v-wade-decision-213179

Mexican abortion-pill networks reach across U.S. border to help immigrants without access

By Marien López-Medina, Kevin Palomino, April Pierdant and Tori Gantz
Sep 9, 2023

MONTERREY, Mexico — Verónica Cruz Sánchez watched something remarkable happen from the office of her women’s rights organization in Guanajuato, the capital city of one of this country’s most conservative Catholic states.

Founder of Las Libres — “the free” in English — she had built an underground abortion-pill network in a country where having the procedure could have meant going to jail.

In September 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that abortion was no longer a crime — not even in places like Guanajuato, where it continues to be outlawed by the state.

Continued: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/mexican-abortion-pill-networks-reach-across-u-s-border-to-help-immigrants-without-access/article_75ac1598-4d93-11ee-bd66-d34ec1a86685.html

Latin American abortion rights activists just notched another win in Mexico

The Mexican Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide. It’s a big deal for the whole region.

By Nicole Narea
Sep 7, 2023

Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide Wednesday, making it one of many Latin American countries that has eased restrictions on the procedure in recent years.

Wednesday’s decision comes after a narrower 2021 ruling that decriminalized abortion only in the state of Coahuila, which sits along the US-Mexico border. Though some states moved to liberalize their laws around abortion since that ruling, federal law defining abortion as “unconstitutional,” as well as laws penalizing medical providers who perform the procedure, still stood until Wednesday. Now, abortion will become available in all federal Mexican health institutions in every state where women could have previously faced criminal penalties for undergoing the procedure.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/9/7/23863267/mexico-abortion-decriminalize-supreme-court-ruling

07.09.2023

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Anu Kumar

Civil Association for the Rights of the Conceived

decriminalization of abortion

Mexico decriminalizes abortion, extending Latin American trend of widening access to procedure

BY FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ AND MEGAN JANETSKY
September 6, 2023

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Supreme Court threw out all federal criminal penalties for abortion Wednesday, ruling that national laws prohibiting the procedure are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights in a sweeping decision that extended Latin American’s trend of widening abortion access.

The high court ordered that abortion be removed from the federal penal code. The ruling will require the federal public health service and all federal health institutions to offer abortion to anyone who requests it.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/mexico-abortion-decriminalize-d87f6edbdf68c2e6c8f5700b3afd15de

Mexican state of Aguascalientes becomes 12th to decriminalize abortion

By Sarah Morland
August 30, 2023

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Supreme Court said on Wednesday it had decriminalized abortion in the central state of Aguascalientes, making it the twelfth Mexican state to revoke criminal penalties for the procedure.

The court said the former law had criminalized health workers and "totally suppressed the constitutional right of women and people with the capacity to bear children to choose, and therefore their right to health, equality and non-discrimination."

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexicos-aguascalientes-becomes-12th-state-decriminalize-abortion-2023-08-30/

30.08.2023

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5 reasons why abortion must be decriminalised in Britain

July 13, 2023
Ren Aldridge and Janey Starling

Last month, Carla Foster, a mum of three, was sentenced to prison for self-administering an abortion. Her case has brought Great Britain’s arcane abortion laws into public view – along with calls from MPs, health experts and women’s charities to decriminalise abortion.

Decriminalising abortion simply means treating it as the healthcare procedure it is and never as a criminal offence. Here are five reasons why that needs to happen…

Continued: https://www.kerrang.com/5-reasons-why-abortion-must-be-decriminalised-in-britain

13.07.2023