The Congress of the Mexican state of Puebla approved On Monday, July 15, the decriminalization of abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation. The measure, which has generated concern among the Catholic Church and pro-life leaders, was approved with 29 votes in favor, seven against and four abstentions.
The votes in favor came mainly from legislators from the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party, from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the elected president Claudia Sheinbaum. Members of the Labor Party (PT), Citizen Movement, Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM), Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and seven legislators from the so-called “Plural Group” also voted in favor.
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The votes against were five deputies from the National Action Party (PAN), one from the Social Integration Pact (PSI) and a legislator from Morena. A congresswoman from the PRI, one from the PAN, one from Morena and one from the Plural Group abstained.
This vote has been one of the last carried out by the current members of the Puebla Congress. On September 15, the legislators elected on June 2 of this year will take office.
The approved legislation will now go into the hands of the outgoing governor of the state of Puebla, Salomón Céspedes, who in the coming days will be able to veto or sign it and determine its publication in the official newspaper, with which the regulations will come into force. According to the newspaper El Sol de Puebla, Céspedes expressed respect for the “sovereignty of Congress”, so he could be expected to validate the new legislation.
Once in force, the regulations will repeal articles of the Penal Code that punish the abortion procedure, following the line of a resolution issued in 2023 by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN).
In said resolution, the SCJN declared the articles that criminalize abortion invalid, establishing a precedent for decriminalization in other states.
According to the legislative proposal, five articles of the Penal Code will be reformed to establish in section 339 that “whoever terminates the pregnancy after the twelfth week of gestation commits the crime of abortion.”
On the other hand, article 340 considers a penalty of six months to one year in prison for “the woman or pregnant person who voluntarily procures her abortion or consents to another having her aborted after 12 weeks of pregnancy,” and between one and three years in prison for anyone who helps carry out the procedure.
Likewise, it establishes that articles 341 and 342 incorporate prison sentences for anyone who helps carry out a “forced abortion,” as well as for the doctors who perform it.
In 343 it will be indicated that there will be no sanction in the event that “the pregnancy is the result of rape or non-consensual artificial insemination”, or in the event that “in the opinion of a specialist doctor there is sufficient reason to diagnose that “The product has genetic or congenital alterations that may result in physical or mental damage,” among other reasons.
“Deep sadness” in the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church expressed “its deepest sadness” after the legislators’ vote was announced, and regretted that in the state “the right to life is violently denied.”
Through a statementthe Archdiocese of Puebla, although dismayed, stated that “hope is not lost that Jesus, the Lord of Life, will triumph over the culture of throwaways and the culture of death.”
For this reason, the Catholic Church announced initiatives through its different pastoral efforts to provide a concrete response to the situations derived from decriminalization.
“Puebla does not need more death”
Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, urged the elected governor Alejandro Armenta, who will take office on December 14, to “not subscribe to the culture of death, because Puebla does not need more death, but rather it needs more life and that life is protected.”
In an interview with ACI Prensa on July 16, Cortés warned that the next step for the new government and legislators could be that “they want to reform the law to use tax resources from the working people of Puebla to kill Puebla residents.”
He also criticized that currently Mexican politicians are subordinated to “a global agenda and global pressures that want to impose population control policies.”
Despite the vote in Congress, Cortés applauded the people of Puebla who gathered to demonstrate against the initiative, as well as the legislators who voted against it and the young people and organizations who gathered for the first time to express their rejection of the initiative. abortion.
For Cortés, “the sum of “these elements that resisted the culture of death and that continue to defend life despite the fact that everything is against it is something positive.”
For its part, the Red Familia platform regretted that the deputies had “voted in favor of the death of thousands of innocent girls and boys.”
In a statement, Mario Romo, national leader of the institution, expressed his regret at the approval of this initiative “without having granted public spaces for dialogue, without allowing the opinion of specialists in human rights, medicine or law.”
Likewise, he indicated that the deputies have “blood on their hands,” and their argument was riddled with “fallacies and half-truths.”
The ruling ensures to protect the lives of women who have abortions and thereby reduce maternal mortality. However, Romo said that in the state 94.1% of maternal deaths “have nothing to do with abortion.”
She also reiterated her position that “being in favor of women is being in favor of life,” pointing out that it is not possible to conceive of protecting women “but not respecting the most basic thing that is their life and well-being.”
Diego López Colin
I am a graduate of Journalism at the Carlos Septién García School with experience in religious institutional communication. Since 2016 he has written for digital media and, since 2018, I have reported the most important news about Catholic events in Mexico for the EWTN news channel. He has been ACI Prensa correspondent in Mexico since 2023.