Mexico moves toward decriminalizing abortion following landmark ruling

While Mexico City had decriminalized abortion, it remained criminal at the federal level

By Angelica Dino
11 Apr 2024

A group of Mexican senators has initiated legislation to remove abortion from the federal penal code, a significant move following the Supreme Court's decision last autumn to decriminalize abortion at the federal level, the International Bar Association reported.

This legislative effort is a direct response to the Supreme Court's directive, requiring the Mexican Congress to align federal law with this landmark judgment. Historically, Mexico City and several other states had decriminalized abortion, but at the federal level, it remained classified as a criminal offense. The journey towards reform was advanced in 2021 when the Supreme Court, through a series of judgments, decriminalized abortion in the northern state of Coahuila. These rulings set a constitutional precedent, emphasizing that criminal penalties for abortion and restrictive measures like “expansive rights to conscientious objection” used to deny abortion services were unconstitutional.

Continued: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/international/mexico-moves-toward-decriminalizing-abortion-following-landmark-ruling/385367

The Long Quest for Reproductive Justice in Mexico: Feminist Legal Strategies and Challenges to Changing Abortion Precedent in a Federal System

Alma Beltrán y Puga
January 15, 2024

As the Green Wave echoes throughout the Latin American feminist movement, the Mexican legal system has progressed accordingly. Feminist legal groups have adopted innovative legal strategies to solidify the right to abortion at the federal level, but state-level protections are still needed to satisfy the “my body, my choice” chants taking place in the streets. Similar to how feminist advocacy groups have gradually influenced legal theory, legal changes attempt to counter the conservative, religious perspective on bodily autonomy in Mexico.

Mexico has entered the international spotlight due to a recent federal Supreme Court ruling protecting abortion rights. This groundbreaking decision has resulted from the feminist movement’s continuous litigation and the Court’s 2021 case law both of which have promoted reproductive justice in Latin America. While innovative legal strategies in the feminist movement have characterized the fight for reproductive justice, Mexico’s federalist system presents ongoing challenges to abortion litigation in Mexico. The Supreme Court of Mexico’s major rulings regarding reproductive rights and the challenges of implementing this comprehensive constitutional jurisprudence in a federal system will be discussed.

Continued: https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2024/01/15/the-long-quest-for-reproductive-justice-in-mexico-feminist-legal-strategies-and-challenges-to-changing-abortion-precedent-in-a-federal-system/

15.01.2024

Information Group on Reproductive Choice

Public healthcare in northern Mexico is dodging federal rules on abortion

Mexican law allows abortion for victims of rape – but state hospitals and politicians often stand in their way

Dánae Vílchez, Verónica Martínez
2 November 2023

Mexican federal regulations to provide emergency abortion services to victims of rape are being systematically flouted by state government health workers and law enforcement bodies in regions bordering the US, an investigation by openDemocracy and La Verdad de Juárez has found.

Federal regulations permit women and girls to have an abortion if they are victims of rape. But hospitals and police in northern Mexican states – where there is a growing rate of sexual violence and high prevalence of under-age pregnancy – stop abused pregnant women from taking control of their healthcare decisions, say medical sources and rights advocates.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/mexico-abortion-legal-rules-regulations-supreme-court-chihuahua-nuevo-leon-sonora/

As Mexico expands abortion access, activists support reproductive rights at the U.S. border

BY MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ
October 13, 2023

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — It’s Sunday night and Crystal P. Lira is not answering her messages. Inside the headquarters of Colectiva Bloodys y Projects, an organization that has supported reproductive rights near the U.S.-Mexico border since 2016, her only concern is for the woman she has provided with a safe space to get an abortion.

Lira, who lives in Tijuana, in northern Mexico, is one among dozens of Mexican “acompañantes” — volunteers who support women wanting to terminate a pregnancy. Located all over the country, most acompañantes offer virtual guidance through an abortion protocol in which no clinics or prescriptions are needed.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/mexico-legal-abortion-access-activists-470863cf5a9101b7ffb12bd323e3466b

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

Winning the right to abortion: the revolution of Latin American women

When Roe v. Wade was repealed in the United States, decades of progress in the struggle for reproductive rights were threatened. But across the Western Hemisphere, the tide has recently been in favor of the right to choose, with the decriminalization of abortion in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico

Beatriz Guillén
SEP 10, 2023

Simone de Beauvoir once said: “Never forget that a political, economic or religious crisis will be enough for women’s rights to be questioned again. These rights are never to be taken for granted; you must remain vigilant throughout your life.” It was an omen. Such a situation occurred in June 2022, when the United States Supreme Court repealed the right to abortion in the country, 50 years after it was encoded into law.

The repeal of Roe v. Wade proved that changes in political or judicial power could put past victories into jeopardy. It dealt a blow to the decades of struggle; however, it failed to stem the tide throughout the Western Hemisphere. In Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, the justice systems have recently decriminalized the interruption of a pregnancy at the federal level. These rulings have emerged as beacons of hope in the defense of women’s reproductive rights in the Americas.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-10/winning-the-right-to-abortion-the-revolution-of-latin-american-women.html

The US Supreme Court took away abortion rights. Mexico’s high court just did the opposite.

Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY
Sept 9, 2023

A ruling this week by Mexico’s Supreme Court to decriminalize abortion continues a broadening push in recent years to expand abortion access in Latin America, placing the region more in line with global reproductive-rights trends than the United States, where Roe v. Wade was struck down last year.

Counter-intuitively, the Mexican court's decision toward opening up abortion access comes in a country with lower support for abortion rights than in the United States, where abortion access has been widely restricted in recent months.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/09/09/mexicos-highest-court-opened-up-abortion-rights/70797288007/

EXPLAINER: Abortion access has expanded but remains difficult in Mexico. How does it work now?

Fabiola Sanchez, The Associated Press
Sep 08, 2023

MEXICO CITY — The decision by Mexico’s Supreme Court ending federal criminal penalties for abortion was a boost to activists who waged decades-long campaigns for safe abortion access nationwide. The mostly Catholic country still has significant barriers to overcome before Mexican women gain universal access.

Twenty of Mexico ‘s 32 states have laws classifying abortion as a crime that allow exceptions only in cases of rape. Some also include exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger, or if there are severe fetal anomalies.

Continued: https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/explainer-abortion-access-has-expanded-but-remains-difficult-in-mexico-how-does-it-work-now

08.09.2023

Commentary

abortion law reform

GIRE

Information Group on Reproductive Choice

Latin America women’s rights groups say their abortion win in Mexico may hold the key to US struggle

Women’s rights activists in Latin America have long looked to the United States as a model in their decades-long struggle to chip away at abortion restrictions in their highly religious countries

By MEGAN JANETSKY, Associated Press
September 7, 2023

MEXICO CITY -- Women's rights activists in Latin America have long looked to the United States as a model in their decades-long struggle to chip away at abortion restrictions in their highly religious countries.

But after a historic Mexican Supreme Court ruling decriminalizing abortion on the federal level, some think U.S. activists should now turn to their counterparts south of the border as they navigate a post-Roe v. Wade reality.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latin-america-womens-rights-groups-abortion-win-mexico-103018403

Mexico’s Supreme Court upholds abortion rights nationwide, paving way for federal access

By Gabriella Borter
September 6, 2023

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a federal law criminalizing abortion, reaffirming an earlier ruling that criminal penalties for abortion were unconstitutional and allowing the federal healthcare system to provide services.

Mexico's highest court, which consists of 11 justices, declared that criminal penalties for abortion were unconstitutional in 2021, but the ruling only applied to the northern state of Coahuila, where that case originated.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexicos-supreme-court-upholds-abortion-rights-nationwide-paving-way-federal-2023-09-06/

06.09.2023