(LifeSiteNews) — Mexico’s Supreme Court yesterday debated a draft ruling that pro-life groups warn seeks to totally decriminalize abortion in the country.
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) considered a ruling on Constitutional Challenge 172/2024, which challenges the Mexican state of Aguascalientes’ constitutional protections for life “from conception” as well as state penal-codes restricting abortion.
Mexican pro-life advocates say the ruling would effectively allow abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy by removing legal protection for unborn babies.
The constitutional challenge, which was filed in 2024 by the federal executive branch and the National Human Rights Commission, aims to nix portions of the Aguascalientes State Law for the Protection of Life, which holds that “from the moment an individual is conceived, he/she falls under the protection of the present law.”
The challenge also seeks to eliminate articles of the penal code for the state of Aguascalientes, which “reduce the time frame for abortion on demand from 12 to six weeks of gestation,” according to EWTN News.
The draft ruling, which was authored by Supreme Court Justice-Rapporteur Irving Espinosa Betanzo, states that “the only way to eliminate criminalization is through total decriminalization, whereby abortion would be regulated solely within the realm of public health.”
It cites the feminist organization Group for Information on Elective Reproduction (GIRE), which is considered by U.S. abortion provider Planned Parenthood to be one of its “allies and partners” that it is “proud to stand with … for sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
Uriel Esqueda, leader of campaigns for the Actívate (Get Active) platform, told ACI Prensa in a May 27 interview that “what this Aguascalientes case seeks to do is completely strip away even the slightest protection for the human being in the womb,” thereby setting a “precedent” that would make way for similarly unfettered access to abortion in other Mexican states.
“At the end of the day, by repealing the criminalization of abortion, you open the door to allowing abortion at any stage of pregnancy,” he noted.
The pro-life organization Red Familia (Family Network) has also pointed out that the challenge undermines the legislative power by “increasingly narrow(ing) the scope of legislative discretion available to the states.”
“Although it does not formally establish a single time limit for abortion across Mexico,” the group said, “it’s a push toward a uniform national model constructed upon judicial criteria rather than democratic deliberation (going through the legislative process); in doing so, it risks a direct confrontation with governors and legislators.”
“The Supreme Court intends to commit a supreme injustice this week, as they plan to vote on a proposal to remove the crime of abortion (from the statutes of) Aguascalientes,” with “repercussions that could extend across the entire republic,” said Rodrigo Iván Cortes, president of the National Front for the Family, in a video message.
“Mexico does not need more death; we have enough already with the hundreds of thousands of people murdered by organized crime, without the Supreme Court now seeking to legalize the death of the most innocent (human beings),” he stated.