Historic decision in Mexico, in the state of Coahuila de Zaragoza, where the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to penalize women who abort in the first phase of pregnancy and the health personnel who assist them. This is a radical change in a profoundly Catholic country, which now recognizes the right of women to decide. For judge Luis Mari’a Aguilar “There is no place within the jurisprudential doctrine of this Constitutional Court in a scenario in which women cannot consider the dilemma of continuing or terminating the pregnancy”.
The judges of the plenum therefore unanimously rejected Article 196 of the Criminal Code of the State of Coahuila, which imposed a sentence of one to three years of imprisonment for “the woman who voluntarily practices her abortion or the person who aborts her with your consent “.
Abortion, the criminalization of which is a local responsibility, has so far only been decriminalized in four of the country’s 32 states: Mexico City, Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Veracruz. Now, however, the Supreme Court’s decision not only invalidates the penal code of the state in question, Coahuila, but creates a binding precedent for all courts in the country. In fact, the decision establishes “mandatory criteria for all judges in the country”, forcing them to act in the same way in similar cases, as stated by the President of the Court Arturo Zaldivar.
A decision that goes against the tide of the restrictions introduced last week in Texas, a neighboring country.