Today colleagues and friends in Mexico are celebrating the 2-year anniversary of the passage of legislation that decriminalizes abortion in Mexico’s capital city. Below is a note to supporters from GIRE‘s executive diretor. The new law has meant the end of women seeking emergency obstetric care for injuries resulting from unsafe clandestine abortions.
The statement:
Today is the 2nd anniversary of the decriminalization of abortion in Mexico City. This historic reform means that any woman can safely terminate a pregnancy during the first 12 weeks of gestation in 14 of the city’s public hospitals.
The legal termination of pregnancy is a great symbolic victory in the long struggle for women’s right to choose, in addition to being a resounding public health success, as recognized yesterday in the forum: “Two Years of Exercising Our Rights: Legal Termination of Pregnancy” organized by the Mexico City government and non-profit organizations; GIRE included.
According to data presented by Minister of Health, Armando Ahued Ortega, over 23,000 women have accessed safe and legal abortion since April 2007; women who otherwise would have placed their health and lives at risk in clandestine abortions. Proof of this is that in two years not one woman has sought emergency care for complications of an abortion. In other words, the law that today has been in effect for two years has positively influenced women’s lives, health and autonomy.
Today, we celebrate!
Sincerely,
María Luisa Sánchez Fuentes
Executive Director
