The Mexican supreme court just ruled 10-0 that criminal penalties for abortion are unconstitutional:
Mexico’s supreme court has struck down a state abortion law, ruling that criminal penalties for terminating pregnancies are unconstitutional, in a decision which advocates say provides a path to decriminalisation across the country.
In a unanimous 10-0 ruling, the top court ordered the northern state of Coahuila to remove sanctions for abortion from its criminal code – with several justices arguing the prohibitions on voluntarily interrupting a pregnancy violated women’s rights to control their own bodies.
“It is not about the right to abortion,” said justice Luis María Aguilar, who wrote the court’s opinion for overturning the Coahuila law. “It’s rather the right to decide of women and persons able to gestate to make decisions.”
Americans who live near the border already cross over to get cheap dental and medical care, as well as prescriptions, so I guess abortions will probably be next, at least in Texas. Of course, some eagle eyes at the border will be out to collect their $10K, so the women who cross over had better beware.
While Latin America is rebelling against Catholofascism (Argentina legalized abortion in December), the Christofascists around here are just getting started.
As a side note, I’m able to keep up with Canadian news by using the CBC, but I find it really hard to keep up with news from Mexico because the US media basically doesn’t know and/or doesn’t care. If any of you have found some good sources for English language Mexican news, please mention them in the comments.
lowtechcyclist
Can we give Texas back to Mexico?
Would they take it if we did?
trollhattan
Thots ‘N Praars.
JaneE
Does the Texas law allow them to sue the woman having an abortion, or only those who help her? I assume they could sue the woman as well. If I thought I might need abortion services and could afford it, a weekly or monthly trip across the border for shopping sounds nice. Just so the one to get the abortion wouldn’t seem unusual.
I don’t imagine Mexico would allow someone to build a giant “Abortionville” right on the border with flashing neon signs you could see for miles, but it would serve Texas right if they could.
hells littlest angel
CRISIS AT THE BORDER!!! WHERE IS KAMALA???
A Ghost to Most
@lowtechcyclist: Kick Texas and Florida out. They don’t have to go home, but they can’t stay here.
Splitting Image
Uh-oh. Pity poor Ted Cruz. People will talk if he takes his daughters on any more trips to Cancun.
Good for Mexico though. And Argentina.
Mike in NC
I found it interesting to read today that the current mayor of Mexico City is named Claudia Sheinbaum, born there in 1962.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@JaneE:
There are a couple of towns that have major dental practice areas right across the border. Los Algodones is one I know about. Also, every town in Mexico where tourists might travel have pharmacies on almost every corner. I would think that abortion would be another service that would spring up in border towns.
Cacti
Just saw a great slogan to throw back in Repukes’ faces on the Texas abortion debacle.
The GOP’s official position now is that “life begins at rape”.
Mike in NC
@A Ghost to Most: I love that little animated bit that shows Bugs Bunny sawing off Florida and letting it drift away. Texas would be a tougher job.
Cacti
Have you ever been to a border town? I could totally see one doing that. They plaster signs for cheap prescription drugs, dentistry, etc. all over the place already.
Ken
@JaneE: As you cross from Missouri into Illinois (at St. Louis), there’s a big billboard with “welcome to Illinois where abortions are safe and legal”.
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist:
Most definitely not, but they might build a wall along the Texan-Mexican border.
The Thin Black Duke
@trollhattan: Well, it appears idiots of a feather get sick together. Podcaster and self-professed “moron” Joe Rogan is using Ivermectin to treat his Covid-19 symptoms. Just say “Neigh”, Joe.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
Seriously?
WaterGirl
Mexico is more civilized than the United States.
Hey we should have a law like that. Oh wait, we do. How the hell can it be legal for states to make laws that remove federal rights?
Paging one of our the resident Balloon Juice attorneys.
West of the Cascades
@Mike in NC: If the US and Mexico squeeze really hard, Texas will be shoved out into the Gulf like the turd it is.
The Moar You Know
Problem being that there’s not that many good Spanish-language Mexican news outlets.
I read La Prensa Mexico:
https://www.la-prensa.com.mx/
But frankly it could be a lot better.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@mrmoshpotato:
https://newschannel20.com/news/local/new-billboard-welcome-to-illinois-where-you-can-get-a-safe-legal-abortion
Ocotillo
Texas doesn’t float off into the Gulf of Mexico because Oklahoma sucks. I’ll see myself out now.
Jeffro
Says a lot that the “world’s greatest/oldest/bestest ever! democracy!” has people heading north & south for health care & dental care while vacuuming up vast quantities of recreational drugs and shooting each other in astonishing numbers while posting just about the worst pandemic response in the world.
It’s almost like…hang with me a minute, here…it’s almost like we (as a country) aren’t really all that serious about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Maybe that’s just my take, I dunno.
Ken
@mrmoshpotato: It was still there in July, when I last visited Missouri.
New Deal democrat
I was thinking that Blue States can neuter Texas’s law in much the same way that free States hemmed in the Fugitive Slave Act.
1. Jury trials in the Defendant’s State required to issue any court orders to enforce the Texas judgement.
2. Even better, an Anti-frivolous Lawsuit Act, allowing a defendant in any out of state frivolous lawsuit to countersue for treble damages in their home State, where the underlying out of State suit is a frivolous case attempting to interfere with the exercise of Constitutional rights.
Yutsano
@Ocotillo: That was bad and you should feel bad for that.
Univision really is doing a disservice by not having English subtitles for their news programs. Unless they do and I never have seen them?
The Thin Black Duke
If this doesn’t fuel a heavy turnout by white women in the 2022 midterms, nothing will.
Marmot
Hey, we have problems and could use some help from the rest of you. But you’re too busy making dumb jokes about us. so juvenile and counterproductive.
And you’re actually one of the commenters I generally agree with.
Marmot
@The Thin Black Duke: Damn, no kidding. I’m well past sick of hearing about how “women” (understood as college-educated white women) won’t take it anymore. Let’s actually see it.
Kirk Spencer
@The Thin Black Duke: why would white women turn out for a Mexican court decision?
More seriously, I think you are overestimating how much the Traxxas law will affect their decisions. I’m more cynical, but then I recall how many white women voted for Trump instead of either Hillary or Joe.
Ruckus
@Ken:
I believe that’s been there for a long time
Or one like it.
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano: Two records! Zoidberg, you’re becoming a crafty consumer. I’ll take 8!
dc
Here’s one newspaper in English: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/
Morzer
At this rate Texas is going to have to build a wall to keep its wretched citizens in, rather than keep “those people” out.
Baud
Obviously, there’s a provision in the Mexican constitution that allows them to troll Texas at every opportunity.
Brachiator
Mexico. More rational and humane than the US. Who would have guessed?
WaterGirl
@Kirk Spencer: I think you underestimate how women feel about the right to control our own bodies. In a world where the Republicans go too far every day, this is too far x100.
The trick will be educating low information women who are not yet paying attention to this.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Where is the -ex President of Mexico who did such a superb job of trolling T****?
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Former Mexican President Vincente Fox:
“Mexico is not paying for that f#cking wall!”
There was no tape delay. I remember interviewer Maria Bartiromo’s eyes getting big as saucers.
Kirk Spencer
@WaterGirl: I hope I’m wrong. I hope this time…
trollhattan
@Geminid:
Couldn’t happen to a nicer interviewer. I can remember when she was once not-awful, not sure if that was in the present century, however.
TheOBP
@Marmot: thank you. i was reading through the comments looking for someone to finally say this.
Andrew
Native Texan here, watching once again as Texas hatred unfolds in real time. Remember that many, meny people in my home state worked very hard to turn the ship around in 2018, and again in 2020. Do you hate them, too? Please stop. Instead of fantasizing about cutting off Texas (and Florida, my current state of residence) how about helping them to change for the better?
Southern Goth
One time I asked a waitress at a Waffle House if I could have the Texas toast without the Texas.
My attempt at humor was not well-received.
pajaro
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
Unless all of the reporting I’ve read has it wrong, the Texas law targets aiders and abettors, not the woman who is pregnant. There is nothing to stop Mexico from having hospital clinics that provide surgical abortions. Also, and possibly more important, there is nothing to stop the pharmacies from dispensing pills. Since the federal government handles the border, it’s not like the people who return to the US are likely to be arrested for bringing in RU-486, any more than any other prescription medication and, since Texas has outsourced enforcement to private citizens, there is no basis for the Texas rangers to go after anyone. I could obviously be wrong, but as long as there is only a transaction between the person desiring to terminate and individuals in a foreign country, there may be no easy way for the bounty hunters and informants to get an enforceable judgment.
pajaro
@Andrew:
@Andrew: Texas hatred is fully warranted, particularly when directed against your government, rather than those of you trying to stop your government. New York politicians don’t run against “Texas values” let alone try to stop hurricane aid when you are stricken. Yet your politicians voted against aid for hurricane Sandy, and your politicians run constantly against “New York” or “San Francisco” values. Somehow, it seems that a portion of your population finds that attractive. Worse, your state is unique in your government’s willingness to lash out against the rest of us to support its positions. No northern politician has ever sought to cancel your votes, yet it was your State that got up the nerve to file its disgraceful lawsuit at the Supreme Court to void elections in places like Pennsylvania, and it is your legislature that is authorizing lawsuits against individuals in other states who are engaging in actions clearly permitted by the constitution, as interpreted (at least so far) by the Supreme Court. And that’s before we even get to the harm folks in your state are bringing to places like Colorado by tourists who come from coronavirus friendly places.
WaterGirl
@Andrew: I’m sure that’s frustrating. Please remember that a few people saying that doesn’t mean that all or even most of us here feel that way.
I have contacted two different organizations in Texas to see about us fundraising for them, but I haven’t gotten any contact back. If you have any connections for that in Texas, let me know, please.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Not much money to collect off of some teenage girl from a poor family.
It still think the law is really intended to allow Fundamentalist abusive control freak parents to harass their estranged children’s rescuers. The whole child murder thing fits a bunch of far right conspiracy theories.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
More about my above opinion this Texas abortion bounty hunter law is about harassing people the far right doesn’t like. Governor Arbitrator is now going on about “eliminating all rapist” so there won’t be need for abortions for rape. As we saw with Pizza gate “child murderer” and “child rapists” are a frequent accusation against the left and gays by the far right since the ’80s. They know that BS and would never stand up in a court of law, but move both to a civil court were the burden proof is lower and it lets crazy old rich white men screw with people.
Felanius Kootea
@Brachiator:
Mexico’s first black president (Vicente Guerrero) abolished slavery there in 1829, well ahead of the US.
J R in WV
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
I would think this ruling means the Pharmacias in Mexico will be able to provide medicinal treatment that would create a misca
rriage ending a pregnancy pretty safely. Won’t cost as much as flying to Canada, or California, just as good a standard of care as in TX.
I’m surprised you have trouble getting current news our of Mexico, we have a camp at 5,500 feet and facing SE towards the Mexico, with a large city named Aqua Prieta about 30 miles away, with lots of Mexican radio stati… wait a minute — maybe better to stop n….. ;~)
Geminid
@pajaro: “Somehow… a portion of your population finds that attractive.”
True, but what portion? Last year, for every 26 Texans who voted for trump, 24 voted for Biden. Texas is like Florida: a purple state with a gerrymandered red legislature.
J R in WV
@Felanius Kootea:
Which is why Texas fought their first war of secession against the government of Mexico long before the rest of the slavery states attempted to secede from the US. The only state to fight two wars to retain the right to enslave some people to enrich other less dark people.