Photo: Carlos Ramírez / EFE
By: EFE
Tuesday, November 5
The Supreme Court of Mexico declares unconstitutional to criminalize abortion in historic ruling
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) of Mexico declared this Tuesday unconstitutional the criminalization of women who abort in the first stage of pregnancy and recognized the right to decide in a historic ruling.
Unanimously, the SCJN plenary ministers invalidated the article 196 of the penal code of the northern state of Coahuila that imposed from one to three years in prison “on women who voluntarily practice their abortion or the person who makes him abort with consent. ”
“ There is no place within the jurisprudential doctrine of this Constitutional Court a scenario in which women and people with the ability to carry a child cannot consider the dilemma of continuing or interrupting their pregnancy “, argued the project of Minister Luis María Aguilar.
Abortion, whose criminalization is local competence , is only decriminalized in four of the 32 states of the country: Mexico City, Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Veracruz .
But now, derived from a challenge that the defunct Attorney General’s Office of the Republic (PGR) made against the Penal Code of Coahuila in 2017, the SCJN declared unconstitutional the criminalization of women who abort and that of the health personnel who assists her with consent.
“The grip of criminal law to sanction Whoever voluntarily interrupts her pregnancy is not here a power available to the legislator, because human rights are at stake ”, Minister Margarita Ríos-Farjat indicated this Tuesday.
The ruling has been “historic” because it is the first time that the Supreme Court of Mexico “ center of the discussion the right to decide “, according to Minister Aguilar.
# IdeaNoticias 💡 🗞️ 📰 # Policy 👔 🗣 # Society 🌇 🌆 The criminalization of abortion in #Coahuila, # Mexico 🇲🇽 is unconstitutional. Thus the words of the minister president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation , #ArturoZaldivar . ⚖️ pic.twitter.com/MC4Ar8x7Wy
– @ ideainfo1💡🗞️📰🇲🇽😎 (@ ideanoticias1) September 7, 2021
the right of women to decide about their body is a solution violates the principle of minimal criminal intervention ”, Minister Yasmín Esquivel agreed in the first session.
The Supreme Court’s decision only invalidates the penal code of the state in question, Coahuila, but sets a mandatory precedent for all courts in the country, which must rule in favor of the women from other states .
With this, women and organizations that defend reproductive rights will be able to take advantage of the p recedente to combat by judicial means the criminalization of abortion in other state penal codes.
In addition, the project stated as one of its implications “ the guarantee that women or pregnant people who so decide can interrupt their pregnancy in public health institutions in an accessible way
, free, confidential, secure, expeditious and non-discriminatory. ” “ The State must not only absolutely abstain from criminalizing abortion , where the right of women or pregnant women to decide on their own body is restricted, but must also guarantee minimum conditions for this to be possible, “added Minister Norma Piña.
DISAGREEMENTS
Despite the support for the project and the concept of the “right to decide”, the ministers they showed their de I do not agree on whether the ruling should define the time of pregnancy. Some ministers argued that the “right to decide” is not “unlimited” , while the president of the Supreme Court, Arturo Zaldívar, regretted that the project “fell short”, since it should invalidate all articles that criminalize abortion under any precept .
“For a decade I have held in this Supreme Court that there is a fundamental right to interrupt pregnancy,” said Zaldívar.
The Supreme Court had already resolved a constitutional controversy in 2008 , when he declared the decriminalization of abortion constitutional in the capital of the country, the then Federal District.
Read also : Several states will follow the steps of Texas to restrict by law the right to abortion