The social movement for reproductive rights across Mexico had been campaigning for change (Picture: Getty/Reuters)
Mexico’s Supreme Court has decriminalised abortion even as parts of the United States tighten its laws.
It comes two years after a ruling that found abortion was not a crime in one of the country’s states.
This then set off a process whereby all 12 states decrimanlised the process – with the last state being Aguascalientes which decriminalised it last week.
The court announced on social media yesterday ‘that the legal system that penalises abortion in the Federal Penal Code is unconstitutional, since it violates the human rights of women and people with the capacity to gestate.’
Mexico City was the first Mexican jurisdiction to decriminalise abortion 15 years ago.
The court’s decision comes amid a sweeping trend of decrimalising abortion across Latin America, while rules in parts of the United States tighten.
Mexico is now an unexpected haven for US women after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
It has led abortion rights activists to express their surprise that Mexico is going forward with its abortion rights and the US is going backwards.
Women take part in a protest in support of safe and legal abortion access to mark International Safe Abortion Day, in Mexico City, Mexico, September 28, 2022 (Picture: Reuters)
A woman holds up a sign that reads ‘In Mexico, we women decide’ (Picture: Getty Images)
Women demonstrate demanding the decriminalisation of abortion (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)
The Information Group for Chosen Reproduction, known by its Spanish initials as GIRE, said the court decided the portion of the federal penal code that criminalised abortion no longer has any effect.
‘No woman or pregnant person, nor any health worker will be able to be punished for abortion,’ the non-governmental organisation said in a statement.
The impact also means the federal public health service and any federal health institution must offer abortion to anyone who requests it, GIRE said.
Mexico is a largely Catholic country after Brazil and the Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures.
In the past hundreds of Mexican women who tried to seek abortion have been jailed and remain so.
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