Mexico City (EFE).- The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) of Mexico eliminated the crime of abortion from the Federal Penal Code by granting protection to the Information Group on Elected Reproduction (GIRE).
“The SCJN decriminalizes abortion at the federal level! Thanks to a protection won by GIRE, all women and people with the capacity to become pregnant will be able to access abortion services at any federal health institution,” the organization announced through the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Likewise, the SCJN indicated said resolution on the same social network.
The First Chamber of the SCJN declared it unconstitutional to penalize abortion in the Federal Penal Code. For violating the human rights of women and people with the capacity to gestate.
Abortion in Mexico
The Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in September 2021 the absolute prohibition of abortion in the penal codes of the states. But since then, few territorial entities have modified their laws to comply with the criteria of the SCJN, so the crime is still classified at the local level.
Based on said sentence, which declared the crime of abortion unconstitutional in the Penal Code of Coahuila, the organization filed the amparo.
The organization detailed in a statement that any federal health institution, such as the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) or the Institute of Security and Social Services of State Workers (ISSSTE), must provide the service to all pregnant people who request it.
In addition, they indicated, health personnel who perform this type of assistance cannot be criminalized.
“Having been approved unanimously, this ruling becomes mandatory for all local and federal judges, who will have to implement what the court said,” reads the GIRE statement.
The feminist organization said it trusts the entities to guarantee reproductive autonomy.
Penal Code Modification
Likewise, the federal Congress must modify the Penal Code from the resolution of the SCJN of this day.
The project voted on was 267/2023 by Minister Margarita Ríos-Farjat. She analyzed articles 330, 331, 332, 333 and 334 of the Federal Penal Code, which mention the penalties for the crime of abortion at the federal level.
Until now, ten of the country’s 32 states allowed women to terminate pregnancies with a limit of 12 weeks of gestation in most legislation, which they progressively modified.
The first law to decriminalize abortion in Mexico approved in the Mexican capital, the then Federal District, in 2007.
