Archdiocese criticizes Mexico Supreme Court’s ‘tireless interest’ in decriminalizing abortion

By David Ramos

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 26, 2023 / 16:30 pm

The Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico criticized the “tireless interest” of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) “in decriminalizing abortion” in the country.

In an editorial in its weekly publication Desde la Fe (“From the point of view of faith”), the Archdiocese of Mexico criticized a recent decision of the First Chamber of the SCJN that determined “that a woman can appeal the laws that penalize abortion, even though she is not pregnant.”

“In addition, this criterion allows organizations that profit from abortion to fight, by means of appeals, the penal codes of the states in order to make abortion disappear from them and thereby liberalize its practice,” the archdiocese warned.

The First Chamber of the SCJN ruled 4-1 that “the mere condition of being a woman or a person with the capacity to gestate is enough to recognize the legitimate interest to challenge by means of a court appeal the regulation of the crime of abortion.”

For the pro-life leader Marcial Padilla, director of the ConParticipation platform, what the SCJN did was “impose abortion on the national level by means of appeals.”

“In other words, a woman who is not yet pregnant can file an appeal and later have an abortion and the law doesn’t apply in that case,” he said.

For example, the Archdiocese of Mexico pointed to a case in the state of Aguascalientes, where “an appeal is scheduled to be discussed on June 28 — requested by an organization that claims to ‘protect women’ — against the penal code of said state in matters of abortion.”

“The first question that arises when hearing of the objective of the organization in question is: ‘Does the woman need to protect herself from her own child, to the point of having to take his life?’ It seems that this is the extreme situation to which they want to lead many women with discourse full of sophistry, lies, and false rights, dehumanizing life at its beginning,” the editorial pointed out.

The archdiocese then noted that “the SCJN has said that the life of the unborn child must be protected in gradations; this makes us raise other questions: Why is a human life protected in gradations and not absolutely?”

“What are the scientific, philosophical, legal, or human rights criteria that support that protecting a life in gradations can be called ‘justice’?” the editorial questioned.

For the Archdiocese of Mexico, it’s worrisome that what is both regulated by the legislative branch and established by the executive branch “is being overturned by a branch of the government that, taking advantage of its power to interpret matters regarding human rights, tries to issue orders, dictating how the laws ought to be in its opinion.”

“We view with concern that in terms of human rights, respect for life continues to be violated in practice, in the laws, and in judicial interpretations,” the archdiocese said.

After emphasizing that “there’s no intention to punish with prison a woman who has had an abortion,” the archdiocese pointed out that “as long as the abortion industry continues to disguise itself as supposed mercy for women it’s important to continue denouncing that human life is being instrumentalized and valued unequally for human beings.”

“We pray to our most holy mother Mary of Guadalupe for all pregnant women, so that, like her, they say yes to life despite the circumstances; and we pray that society and government take actions in support of pregnant women to ease the circumstances they may be facing,” the archdiocesan editorial concluded.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Graduated in Communication Sciences from the Universidad Privada del Norte in Trujillo, Peru. I have been part of the ACI Prensa team for more than 10 years. I have covered Pope Francis' trips to Ecuador, Paraguay, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru. I covered the beatification ceremony of today's Saint Oscar Arnulfo Romero in San Salvador, El Salvador, in 2015. Special envoy for investigation in Honduras in 2016. Head of the ACI Prensa Office in Mexico since 2018.