The Supreme Court declared the criminalization of abortion in Mexico unconstitutional

The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) declared this Tuesday, September 7 the unconstitutionality of the criminalization of women and people who decide to abort at the first stage of pregnancy, as well as the recognition of the right to decide, which has become a historic failure in Mexican history.

Unanimously, the 10 ministers of the plenary session of the SCJN invalidated article 196 of the penal code of the state of Coahuila that inflicted from one to three years of prison “to the woman who performs her abortion voluntarily or to the person who causes her to have an abortion with her consent”.

“There is no place in the jurisprudential doctrine of this Constitutional Court for a scenario in which women and persons with the capacity to bear a child cannot consider the dilemma of continuing or terminating your pregnancy “, argued Minister Luis María Aguilar, who presented the project to the Superior Court.

Abortion, the criminalization of which is a local jurisdiction, is only decriminalized (until the first 12 weeks of gestation) in four of the country’s 32 states: Mexico, Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Veracruz.

Remember that the project was presented after the challenge what turns it off Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) versus Coahuila Penal Code in 2017.

“The pregnant person is criminalized, without being constitutionally defined if life is invariably protected from conception and what is the treatment of the embryo in the legal world ”, explained Minister Margarita Ríos-Farjat.

The decision that the SCJN has taken today only invalidates the Penal Code of the territory of Coahuila; However, create a mandatory precedent so that all the country’s courts rule in favor of women who decide to terminate their pregnancy in other states of the republic.

“The guarantee that women or pregnant persons who so decide can terminate their pregnancy in public health facilities in an accessible, free, confidential, secure, fast and non-discriminatory manner ”, he declared in the final declaration.

On the same subject, the Minister Norma Piña asserted that the state must not penalize abortion absolutely, because that would amount to restricting the right of women or pregnant persons to decide about their own bodies.

“The state must not only absolutely refrain from criminalizing abortion, where the right of women or pregnant people to decide about their own body is restricted, but also must guarantee minimum conditions for this to be possible», Added the lawyer in plenary session of the Superior Chamber.

Likewise, the ministers affirmed that current legislation in Coahuila violates human rights stipulated in Articles 1 and 4 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, in particular where the free development of the personality prevails.

They clarified that denying people with the capacity to develop the right to decide and criminalizing them for having voluntarily terminated their pregnancy is discriminatory and refuses access to health.

This is not the first time that the highest Mexican court has decided a controversy of this type, since in 2008 the Superior Chamber has decided to declare constitutional decriminalization of abortion in the former Federal District, today Mexico.

However, not all spirits were in favor during the two sessions where Minister Aguilar’s project was debated, since some members of the college showed their disagreement about when to terminate the pregnancy.

To whom, the minister president, Arturo Zaldivar, regretted that the decision was insufficient, because it considered that all articles which criminalize abortion under any precept whatsoever should be struck down.

“For a decade, I supported this Supreme Court that there is a fundamental right to terminate a pregnancy. Criminalizing women, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, is deeply unfair and blatantly unconstitutional, ”said Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea.

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