Criminal charges for abortion soar in Mexico, with poor indigenous women the most common defendants

*Updated Sept. 7, 2014*
Guadalajara -
Last August MGR reported that abortion prosecutions are on the rise in many Mexican states. A national advocacy group known as Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (GIRE) now says that criminal complaints against women rose 164% in the two year period between 2009 and 2011.

Mexico's Supreme Court took up abortion in 2011, but by a narrowly divided vote failed to strike down statutes which criminally punish it (Supreme Judicial Court upholds state abortion laws). The tribunal did the opposite of what the U.S. Supreme Court did in the 1973 case of Roe vs. Wade, a controversial ruling which held that a woman has a constitutional right to make decisions affecting her body and that states may not criminalize abortion.

No such legal principles exist in Mexico, and the country remains a patchwork quilt of conflicting regulations on abortion. Each of the 32 states may decide for itself whether to legalize it, and most are staunchly opposed to abortion. Today abortion is prohibited in Sonora, Baja California, Morelos, Colima, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Jalisco, Durango, Nayarit, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Yucatán, Querétaro, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tamaulipas.

In many other Mexican states there are no statutes at all on the subject, but abortions remain very difficult to get in a nation where social norms and religious teachings widely condemn the practice.

GIRE reports that between 2009 and 2001, 679 women were the subject of criminal complaints for the crime of abortion. In the 15 year period between 1992 and 2007, only 62 were. GIRE director Regina Tamés says aggressive enforcement commenced in 2008, when legislatures in 16 Mexican states began adopting laws which declare that life begins at conception. All were enacted in response to the legalization of abortion in the Federal District, where the majority of the procedures are today carried out. Mexico's Supreme Court has thus far refused to strike down those statutes as unconstitutional under the nation's core federal charter, which supersedes state law.

Abortion has become the number three cause of maternal death in Mexico, accounting for 11% of such events, according to GIRE. And its availability is affected by education, ethnicity and wealth.

Tamés said that "the poorest, least educated women who are members of ethnic minorities are nine times more likely to have an unsafe abortion than better educated, more financially stable women who are not part of such groups."  Not coincidentally, the states with the highest rates of maternal death, from abortion and otherwise, are those with very low per capita incomes and substantial indigenous populations often marginalized, including Oaxaca, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Yucatán and Chiapas.

Tamés told a press conference that indigenous women from rural communities are particularly at risk, because when they seek medical care after undergoing an illegal abortion, clinic doctors, nurses and social workers turn them in to authorities. "In such cases the police arrive immediately and take the women into custody," she said. In some instances the women may have not sought an abortion; they may have miscarried or suffer from other medical problems. But a medical case turns into a legal one.

Abortion is an absolute right everywhere in Mexico in cases of impregnation as the result of rape. But Tamés said that victims are often unaware of this, and the morning-after pill is not widely available, especially in rural clinics. Although a special federal prosecution unit investigates sex crimes against women, it "does not consider part of its legal obligation" to inform them of their right to contraceptives, according to Tamés.

Sept. 7, 2014 - More and more women are flocking to Mexico City for an abortion, the city's El Universal reports today, where the procedure is available on demand up until the 12th week of pregnancy. Meanwhile, criminal penalties in in the states of Baja California, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tamaulipas and Yucatán have risen to six years in prison, except in cases arising from sexual assault or where the life of the mother is verified to be in grave medical risk.

Apr. 29, 2013 - Mexican Supreme Court ruling expands abortion rights
Apr. 20, 2012 - Mexican presidential candidates address thorny issues of abortion, same-sex unions

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