There’s no single ‘recipe’ for progress on abortion rights, says Fulda, but “support for the ‘green wave’ [grassroots movement for legal abortion], which started in Argentina and then spread across Latin America, has been crucial.”
Over the last five years, Fulda adds, new “groups, support networks and green wave cells” have emerged across Mexico, along with “women who mobilise and demonstrate in places that had never seen marches for abortion before”.
Alongside such on-the-ground activism, she credits “political work to build consensus in parliaments” with recent changes in favour of legal abortion. “You need to talk to legislators and authorities, clarify doubts, and provide technical support,” she says.
A state-by-state fight
In July, Veracruz became the fourth state in Mexico to legalise abortion, following years of protests by women’s groups and feminist collectives.
Hidalgo state also legalised abortion this year, following in the footsteps of Oaxaca (2019) and Mexico City (2007). A fifth state, Baja California, on the border with the US, followed suit in October. Women and girls in these areas now have access to safe medical terminations for any reason up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. However, this has limited impact overall: only 23% of Mexico’s population lives in these states.
Recent judgements from the Mexico’s Supreme Court – which recognise the reproductive rights of pregnant people; invalidate a federal law that allowed medical staff to ‘conscientiously object’ to performing abortions; and determine that criminalising abortion is unconstitutional – have also created new openings for change.
But what happens at the state level is still crucial. While public health is an issue that falls under the purview of the federal government, criminal law is almost exclusively a state-level matter. Activists expect that they will have to continue to fight, state by state, to ensure these Supreme Court rulings trickle down.
In order to change the lives of women and girls on the ground, each of Mexico’s 32 states will have to enact local laws reflecting the Supreme Court rulings.
State courts should now review cases of women who have been imprisoned for abortion-related crimes. Legislative bodies in 27 states should also start reviewing and revising their penal codes to allow for legal abortions.
Most of these penal codes already consider at least one circumstance under which abortions can be authorised, such as rape, health risks for the woman, severe foetal impairments, artificial insemination without consent or even financial hardship.
Obstacles to accessing legal abortion include conservative interpretations of laws, and doctors being allowed to object to procedures on moral grounds. Right-wing politicians, conservative medical professionals and hardline Catholic groups are expected to continue trying to limit abortion rights.
On-the-ground change
Patty Villanueva is a regular face at women’s rights demonstrations in Veracruz, the port city in the state of the same name, where she lives and runs a small corner shop.
She is among many whose support for legal abortion is also influenced by experience: in her case, of helping her 13-year-old niece who had an unwanted pregnancy. She gave her misoprostol (a pill widely used for medical abortions), but there were complications and they faced legal risks when going to a hospital for help.
Research from the Guttmacher Institute estimates that more than half of unplanned pregnancies in Mexico end in abortion (legal or otherwise), and 38 in every 1,000 women will have an abortion at some point.
But an estimated 80% of the population identifies as Catholic, and abortion is still a divisive issue – despite recent developments. Physician and feminist activist Ana Irene Muro Lagunes, who also lives in Veracruz, said: “The Catholic Church is misogynistic [... and] has a lot to do with the problems we face.”
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