Sinaloa Congress decriminalizes abortion

The Sinaloa Congress decriminalized abortion Tuesday in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling in September.

With 28 votes in favor, two against and nine abstentions, Sinaloa is the seventh state to decriminalize abortion for up to 13 weeks of pregnancy. It did so to the dismay of pro-life protesters who had gathered outside the Congress.

The Pacific state joins Mexico City, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Baja California and Colima, leaving 25 states where the practice remains illegal. It is still allowed in those states in cases of rape, in some cases where there is a risk to the woman’s health, when the fetus is in poor health and in some cases of extreme poverty.

Morena Deputy Nela Rosiely Sánchez has called the criminalization of abortion “a type of gender violence.”

Senate President Olga Sánchez Cordero celebrated the decision. “No longer will women go to prison for taking the decision to abort. The green tide has progressed to Sinaloa,” she said, using the name for the pro-abortion movement in Latin America.

Las morras festejando la despenalización del aborto afuera del Congreso de Sinaloa es LO MÁS CHINGÓN que hemos visto en estos días tan duros 🥺😍.
Por esto sí voté, por esto sí votamos, compas.
¡Larga vida a la izquierda en Sinaloa!
Súbanle al 🔊y disfruten.
🎥: @sthefanyreamx pic.twitter.com/MDag2moclz

— Alfredo Mora Pavón (@alfmorapavon) March 9, 2022

Legal abortion supporters outside the Sinaloa Congress react joyfully to the news.

Sánchez said in a recent debate that there were 1,500 clandestine abortions in Sinaloa every year.

Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Deputy Luis Javier de la Rocha spoke against the bill. He said that while he wasn’t against decriminalizing abortion in principle, lawmakers should understand their responsibility to women when granting the new freedom. He also complained that lawmakers weren’t informed enough to vote, having only received the text of the bill 12 hours earlier.

The Supreme Court effectively decriminalized abortion in Mexico in September, ruling it unconstitutional in response to a challenge to abortion restrictions in Coahuila.

With reports from El País and El Sol de México