Legal Abortion in Mexico City, One Year Later

It's been more than a year since Mexico City made history in Latin America by decriminalizing abortion under all circumstances. As many of RH Reality Check readers already know, on April 24, 2007, the Mexico City Legislative Assembly passed a Decree that decriminalized abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, defining implantation as the beginning of pregnancy and also reducing the sentences for women undergoing abortions after the twelfth week. The Decree also amended Mexico City's Health Law so that it became compulsory for all public health centers in Mexico City to provide adequate medical services to all women requesting for an abortion along with all the necessary information regarding that procedure.

The Decree did not alter the indications under which abortion was already legally allowed: when the woman's health is at risk, when there is severe fetal malformation and in cases of non-consensual artificial insemination and rape. These are still considered legal indications to perform an abortion even after week 12.

Later, on May 4, 2007, the Health Secretariat for Mexico City issued the new Guidelines for the Organization and Operation of Health Services regarding the Interruption of Pregnancy which set up the procedures and requirements that public and private health service staff have to fulfill in order to provide high quality and timely services for women seeking an abortion. The document demands that prior to terminating a pregnancy the woman has to submit a written informed consent, receive counseling from the medical staff and demonstrate that the pregnancy is less than twelve weeks by an accurate medical exam. The health staff must then provide the required services within a forty eight hour deadline (a ten day deadline applies for the indications allowed after week twelve).

Anti-choice campaigners started then a fierce counterattack that has polarized the Mexican society as never seen before. They predicted that Mexico City would become an "abortion paradise" since women from all over the country would travel to the city to have abortion for free. However, things didn't turn out as they anticipated.

After a year since the new regulation became effective, Mexico City health authorities released the official statistics regarding the provision of medical care for women who interrupted their pregnancies at public health facilities. The Health Secretary found that a total of 7820 women underwent abortions, 78% of them originally from Mexico City and the remaining ones from other states, clearly demonstrating that predictions about Mexico City becoming an "abortion paradise" were far from being true.

It was reported that 18,000 women requested information from the counseling services. Eleven thousand five hundred women asked for the interruption of their pregnancies but a third decided not to terminate after counseling.

Official figures also showed that 45.7% of the women who asked for an abortion are between 18 to 24 years old, 21.3% are 25 to 29 and 15.2% are 30 to 34. Contrary to what conservatives expected, young women from 15 to 17 years old only account for 5.5%, while the ones even younger, 11 to 14 years old, represent 0.9% of the total.

According to the Health Secretariat more than 96.9% of the abortions in the last year have been performed without complications. Only one death occurred due to medical malpractice, in which case the doctor responsible was suspended. Raffaela Schiavon, director of Ipas Mexico, highlights the fact that "overall maternal mortality has significantly decreased (14 deaths less than in 2006), and that there has been a clear decline of mortality due to abortion (only one death compared to an average between 8 and 10 per year in the last decade)."

During the year fourteen public hospitals and two centers specialized in adolescents provided the medical services for the interruption on pregnancies. Doctor Jorge Nava Flores, Chief of the Gynecology Department in one of the hospitals where abortions were performed, claimed that "this process has not been easy for doctors since the majority of them reject the procedure."

The Catholics for Choice Director Maria Consuelo Mejia believes that "there is still a lot to do" and that it is necessary to cautiously inform people about the implications of the decriminalization of abortion, demonstrating the benefits that this policy has had on the health of more than 7,000 women in Mexico City.

Civil society organizations and pro-choice campaigners ought to stay alert because the battle is not over yet. The National Human Rights Commission and the Attorney General Office filed unconstitutionality claims of the Decree before the Mexican Supreme Court last year. Public hearings have been taking place in the last months in Mexico City to discuss the constitutionality of the decriminalization of abortion. The ruling is expected to be pronounced in the following month.

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• Emily Douglas, A Woman-Made Miracle
• Maria-Luisa Sanchez, Mexico City Makes Abortion Rights History in Latin America