Mexico: Supreme Court Legalizes Abortion Policy


Mexico’s Supreme Court has unanimously ruled the criminalization of abortion and related penalties unconstitutional. Specifically, the court was dealing with a provision in the Coahuila State Criminal Code that punishes women for all abortions twelve weeks before and threatens them with one to three years in prison regardless of the reason. According to observers, the move could lead to a liberalization of the legal situation in the entire country. With such a move, Mexico, which is largely Catholic and conservative, would follow Argentina, where last year abortions were made legal even without medical reasons.

Judge Margarita Rios-Farjat said that in the name of life “women are punished for being ignorant or promiscuous”. Or not ready to carry the pregnancy to term to put the baby up for adoption. It is not about the right to abortion, but about the right to be able to make free decisions. The previous regulation in the state of Coahuila violated the right of women to determine their own bodies.

The ruling came days after the US Supreme Court refused to block a law in neighboring Texas that bans abortions after six weeks and allows lawsuits against doctors who do such abortions.

Mexico’s Catholic Church reacted with dismay at the verdict. The decision of the judges not only to speak of pregnant women but also to speak of “persons” “who can be pregnant” and thus also to include trans people who have this ability, for example, also caused displeasure in conservative circles .

To the British Guardian according to So far, only four of Mexico’s 31 states have decriminalized abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Three states only lifted restrictions in the past two years.

.



Source link