International Federation
for Human Rights

AMPARO REVIEW: 636/2019

NATIONAL SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE (SCJN-Mexico)

COMPLAINANT: JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENDER, A.C, NATIONAL CITIZEN OBSERVATORY OF FEMICIDE

RESPONSIBLE AUTHORITY: DEPUTIES OF THE SIXTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE OF THE HONORABLE CONGRESS OF THE STATE OF VERACRUZ.

HONORABLE JUSTICES FROM THE FIRST HALL OF THE NATIONAL SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE IN MÉXICO

The undersigned national and international organizations and individuals, address you with the aim of expressing our support and appreciation for the draft judgment to resolve the amparo under review AR 636/2019 made public last Friday, July 17, 2020, which is proposed by Justice Honorable Juan Luis González Alcántara Carrancá, in which the possible legislative omission of the Congress of the state of Veracruz is analyzed as it has not modified various articles of the Criminal Code of that entity that violate or restrict human and reproductive women’s rights.

These modifications refer to the decriminalization of abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation, the inclusion of health risk to the mother as grounds for Interrupcion Legal del Embarazo (ILE, Legal Termination of Pregnancy) and the elimination of the term of ninety days for ILE in case of rape, which were requested in the second Declaration of Alert of Gender Violence (AVG, Alerta de Violencia de Género) for Veracruz in its Comparative Grievance modality.

According to the study published in Lancet Global Health , 61% of unwanted pregnancies (73.3 million) worldwide, ended in abortion between 2015 and 2019, which corresponds to a global rate of 39 per 1,000 women from 15 to 49 years. Also noting that in the past three decades, the proportion of unwanted pregnancies ending in abortion has increased in countries where there are more legal restrictions and where it may be more difficult to access safe and appropriate contraceptive methods, as in Mexico.

In this context, we consider that the proposed resolution fully complies with the obligations of the Mexican State to guarantee the life, integrity and health of women from Veracruz, which, as indicated in the draft judgment, are provided for in the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and in the Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Punish, and Eradicate Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará).

If approved by the majority of the Justices of the First Hall of the SCJN, the proposed resolution will be essential to close the inequality gap for women, since the existence of penal legislation that criminalizes abortion reinforces the discriminatory stereotypes against women, which prevent them from fully exercising their right to decide about their own bodies and access specialized health services that include the legal termination of pregnancy, in an accessible and safe way.

We believe that this resolution can set a fundamental precedent for Mexican women, which will allow them to guarantee their reproductive health under international standards of greater protection. It will also contribute to reduce the gap of substantive and structural inequality based on a culture that denies these rights, giving a forceful message for local congresses to transform discriminatory regulatory frameworks, based on compliance with the international obligations of the Mexican State in the field of women’s human rights.

Of the fundamental arguments that are taken up from this project, we highlight the following, as they are paradigmatic and of public interest to Mexican women:

1) It is determined that the District Judge correctly identified the existence of a legislative omission on the part of the Veracruz Congress because it has not exercised its legislative power.

2) It highlights that articles 149, 150 and 154 of the Criminal Code for the State of Veracruz are discriminatory and / or constitutive norms of violence against women that should have been promptly reformed by the state of Veracruz.

3) The importance of the Declaration of Gender Violence Alert is highlighted as an internal mechanism to raise public awareness of possible breaches by the Mexican State and its entities with conventional and constitutional commitments in the field of human rights. In this case, it revealed a serious problem of discrimination, violence and lack of access to human rights for women in Veracruz.

4) In relation to the aspects that have to do with the health of women, adolescents and girls, the following stands out:

▪ After reading articles 149 and 154 of the local Criminal Code, it is concluded that in Veracruz there is a total prohibition to terminate the pregnancy.
▪ Article 149 of the local Criminal Code is contrary to the Convention of Belém do Pará since it is a provision that, by absolutely prohibiting the ILE, preserves and replicates gender stereotypes about the role of women, due to the implicit transmission of the message that the concept of woman-mother has primacy and that women have value for their reproductive function, and not in themselves.
▪ The total prohibition of the interruption of pregnancy -via criminal classification- is a barrier that generates discrimination against women in relation to access to the right to health.
▪ It is affirmed that the decisions of the woman during the period of the first twelve weeks of the pregnancy are part of her private sphere that is not subject to the sanctioning power of the State. Therefore, it is not in accordance with the conventional obligations to carry a criminal sanction for the interruption of the pregnancy during this period.
▪ Punishing abortion as an “educational” or “health” measure represents a way of infantilizing women, since they question their decision-making capacity and prejudge that the decision they made regarding their bodies is not adequate, reasoning that is stereotypical.
▪ Establishing a time limit and conditions under which women victims of rape or nonconsensual artificial insemination can access the ILE, ignores the nature of the sexual assaults.
▪ To file a complaint as a condition to access the ILE for victims of rape, constitutes a form of violence against women because it can exacerbate the psychological and sexual suffering in their detriment.