Editorial: Mexico decriminalizes abortion while U.S. states want to criminalize it
The Mexican Supreme Court docket of Justice choice decriminalizing abortion final week is a landmark ruling in a rustic that has traditionally outlawed the process with harsh penalties for the ladies who sought it and the healthcare professionals who supplied it.
The ruling, which governs federal regulation in a nation of states, makes abortion authorized in federal well being establishments and requires the general public well being service to supply it. The choice doesn’t robotically make abortion authorized in all of Mexico (the way in which that the Roe vs. Wade choice had made abortion authorized in all the United States). However it may velocity up a motion by Mexican states to legalize the process. Presently, 12 out of 32 states have decriminalized abortion.
The battle for the correct to regulate one’s personal physique continues, however the Mexican judicial ruling is a big victory for reproductive rights and the more and more influential feminist motion in Latin America, which has traditionally been socially and religiously conservative. Argentina, Colombia and different nations within the area have additionally legalized or decriminalized abortion in the previous few years.
But, as Mexico and different Latin American nations display exceptional progress towards defending the correct to bodily autonomy, the U.S. goes backward. Our Supreme Court docket undid protections for abortion final yr when it overturned Roe vs. Wade. And now a rising variety of states are working to erode protections of particular person rights as their legislators seek for extra harrowing and surreal methods to criminalize abortions. A lot for the USA being a beacon of freedom.
In Texas, the place abortion is prohibited except the pregnant particular person’s life is in peril, quite a lot of cities are contemplating “trafficking” legal guidelines to make it a criminal offense to assist a pregnant particular person journey on roads in that metropolis to get an abortion in one other state (like neighboring New Mexico, the place abortion remains to be allowed). Simply because the notorious Texas Senate Invoice 8 allowed a personal citizen to sue somebody suspected of getting helped an individual get an abortion previous about six weeks of being pregnant (earlier than Roe vs. Wade was overturned), a personal citizen would have the correct to sue somebody they suspected of serving to an individual journey on Texas roads and highways out of city for an abortion.
The concept you would sue somebody for legally driving an individual to get a process that’s authorized in one other state is preposterous and presumably a violation of a number of constitutional rights, together with due course of. However as with SB 8, if it’s enforced solely via citizen lawsuits, there’s no authorities official to sue for a constitutional violation. The purpose is to scare folks into not touring on roads in Texas to get abortions.
Even scarier, in Alabama, the place abortion is banned except an individual’s life is in peril, Atty. Gen. Steve Marshall lately stated that teams offering monetary or another type of help to Alabama residents in search of an abortion out of state could possibly be prosecuted on conspiracy costs. Nobody has been charged but, however his threats have already precipitated one abortion help fund to cease offering monetary assist to low-income Alabama residents in search of abortions elsewhere pending a lawsuit it filed asking for court docket safety from anti-conspiracy legal guidelines.
These efforts are as merciless as they’re mind-boggling. The Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe, returned the choice on abortion rights to the states. That didn’t imply it gave states the correct to thwart its residents’ journey plans. Pregnant folks leaving the state aren’t fugitive slaves escaping the plantation.
It’s heartening to witness the progress Mexico has made in restoring rights — and it’s maddening to see the destruction of these rights proceed within the U.S.
