Pro-life organizations in Mexico are raising alarms over a draft ruling set to be debated by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) that they say could lead to the “total decriminalization” of abortion, removing legal protections for the unborn and potentially allowing the procedure throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
On May 28, the SCJN is scheduled to debate Constitutional Challenge 172/2024, authored by Justice-Rapporteur Irving Espinosa Betanzo. The proposal argues that decriminalizing abortion is essential to ending criminal proceedings and social stigmatization within healthcare services.
The challenge, filed in 2024 by the federal executive branch and the National Human Rights Commission, seeks to invalidate key articles of the Aguascalientes State Law for the Protection of Life, which states that protection begins at conception. It also targets state penal codes that reduced the time frame for abortion on demand from 12 to six weeks of gestation.
Uriel Esqueda, leader of campaigns for the Actívate platform, said, “What this Aguascalientes case seeks to do is completely strip away even the slightest protection for the human being in the womb,” setting a precedent that could be replicated in other states.
The pro-life group Red Familia warned that the ruling would “increasingly narrow the scope of legislative discretion available to the states,” pushing toward a uniform national model based on judicial criteria rather than democratic deliberation.
Rodrigo Iván Cortes, president of the National Front for the Family, stated that “the Supreme Court intends to commit a supreme injustice… permitting the practice throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy with repercussions that could extend across the entire republic.”
Esqueda criticized the justices as “activists who answer to ideological agendas,” urging Mexicans to join campaigns demanding the draft ruling not be approved.
