Mexico’s Supreme Court said on Wednesday it had decriminalized abortion in the central state of Aguascalientes, making it the twelfth Mexican state to revoke criminal penalties for the procedure.
The court said the former law had criminalized health workers and “totally suppressed the constitutional right of women and people with the capacity to bear children to choose, and therefore their right to health, equality, and non-discrimination.”
It also violated the right to health of victims of rape, by imposing “requirements which hinder and delay access to health services which, in such cases, should be guaranteed promptly and urgently,” the court said.
Though Mexico’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled penalizing abortion unconstitutional in 2021, most of the country’s 32 states have yet to amend their local legislation.
Source: OEM
