Abortion in Mexico

In Mexico, abortion proceedings fall under local state legislation, as a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2008 found no legal impediment to it in the federal Constitution and stated that, "to affirm that there is an absolute constitutional protection of life in gestation would lead to the violation of the fundamental rights of women". All states' penal codes permit abortions in cases of rape, and all but Guanajuato, Guerrero and Querétaro's permit it to save the mother's life; fourteen out of thirty-one expand these cases to include severe fetal deformities; and the state of Yucatán includes economic factors when the mother has previously bore three or more children. Nevertheless, according to Jo Tuckman of The Guardian, in practice almost no state provides access to abortions in the cases listed, but neither they prosecute the doctors who offer safe illegal abortions nor the cheaper life-threatening backstreet practitioners. There are, however, some exceptions.