Mexico's Supreme Court continues to challenge abortion laws.

The highest court of the country declared, Thursday, September 9, unconstitutional an article of law of the State of Sinaloa (north of Mexico) equating voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) with murder and considering that life is created from there. act of conception.

The decision paves the way for national case law.

In 2007, when Mexico City legalized abortion before twelve weeks, the legislators of at least ten of the 32 states of the country voted contrary to the legal provisions obliging the authorities to "protect life from conception". 

"It does not belong to any local legislature, nor to this plenary assembly to fix the origin of human life, especially in the absence of scientific consensus", criticized the judge Alfred Gutierrez Ortiz Mena, former minister who developed the project. law in question.

Two days earlier, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional articles of the penal code of the state of Coahuila, in the north of the country, which punish women who have abortions with sentences of up to three years. jail.

Access to abortion by decision of a judge

Mexico is a federated country where the states are autonomous in the adoption of their laws, but these can be invalidated by means of an appeal when they contravene decisions of the Supreme Court which make jurisprudence, such as this one. Tuesday.

This decision should allow women living in states where abortion is criminalized to have access to abortion by decision of a judge.

Mexico's Supreme Court also announced that it had set up free counseling and advocacy services for women who may be convicted of having abortions.

In Latin America, voluntary termination of pregnancy is legal in Uruguay, Cuba or Argentina.

It is totally banned in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Haiti.

With AFP

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