Step by Step : Mexico´s Supreme Court Ruling on Abortion

Abstract

Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice (scjn, for its Spanish initials) has played a fundamental role in the defense of reproductive rights in the country. Since 2007, it has issued rulings relevant to ensuring the recognition of access to abortion as a human rights matter. Over the last two decades, it has made steady progress on this issue, adapting its arguments to new human rights standards, to recent and more interesting questions raised by civil society organizations and other authorities, as well as to a political context in which the social demand for liberalizing the regulations restricting abortion is increasingly greater. this document uses simple language to analyze the nine emblematic rulings1 on abortion issued by the country’s most important court between 2002 and 2021. A brief political and contextual analysis is included along with the rulings to highlight their relevance at the time they were issued as well as their impact. Each of these rulings, in its own way, has laid the foundations for abortion to be legally recognized today as a mandatory service in cases where the pregnant person’s health is at risk, and it is also considered a right for victims of sexual violence and a cornerstone of the freedom of choice.