Mexico’s Supreme Court is Moving Towards Abortions Up to Birth

Catholics and pro-life advocacy groups are decrying what they describe as pro-abortion judicial activism by Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.

They are warning that draft rulings and related decisions are advancing the country toward total abortion with no limits.

A draft ruling on Constitutional Challenge 172/2024, addressing Aguascalientes state protections for life from conception and a six-week limit on abortion on demand, was authored by Supreme Court Justice-Rapporteur Irving Espinosa Betanzo.

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The draft states that “the only way to eliminate criminalization is through total decriminalization, whereby abortion would be regulated solely within the realm of public health.”

Pro-life leaders say this language would effectively allow abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy by removing legal protections for the unborn.

Uriel Esqueda, leader of campaigns for the Actívate platform, said the Aguascalientes case “seeks to do is completely strip away even the slightest protection for the human being in the womb,” establishing a precedent for similarly unrestricted access in other states.

“At the end of the day, by repealing the criminalization of abortion, you open the door to allowing abortion at any stage of pregnancy,” he said.

Esqueda added that “today, in the [Supreme] Court, we do not have impartial judges; we have activists who answer to ideological agendas and minority interest groups” and that the justices “feel they’re legislators and that they’re above the states.”

He warned the outcome could leave “the human being in the mother’s womb without any form of protection.”

Rodrigo Iván Cortes, president of the National Front for the Family, said in a video message that “the Supreme Court intends to commit a supreme injustice this week, as they plan to vote on a proposal to remove the crime of abortion [from the statutes of] Aguascalientes,” with “repercussions that could extend across the entire republic.”

He continued, “Mexico does not need more death; we have enough already with the hundreds of thousands of people murdered by organized crime, without the Supreme Court now seeking to legalize the death of the most innocent (human beings).”

The Catholic Church in Mexico, through the Archdiocese of Mexico City’s editorial Desde la Fe, rejected projects before the court that “ponen en juego la protección de la vida humana” and that, in the Church’s view, de-penalize abortion at any stage of pregnancy. The editorial stressed that the defense of human dignity belongs to families, communities, and social organizations.

Church leaders further warned that such measures risk discriminating against pregnant women, increasing male irresponsibility, and heightening the danger of sexual abuse without accountability for perpetrators.

The challenge was filed in 2024 by the federal executive branch and the National Human Rights Commission against Aguascalientes’ State Law for the Protection of Life—which declares that “from the moment an individual is conceived, he/she falls under the protection of the present law”—and against penal-code provisions that narrowed the on-demand window from 12 weeks to six.