Mexican federal regulations to provide emergency abortion services to victims of rape are being systematically flouted by state government health workers and law enforcement bodies in regions bordering the US, an investigation by openDemocracy and La Verdad de Juárez has found.
Federal regulations permit women and girls to have an abortion if they are victims of rape. But hospitals and police in northern Mexican states – where there is a growing rate of sexual violence and high prevalence of under-age pregnancy – stop abused pregnant women from taking control of their healthcare decisions, say medical sources and rights advocates.
In 2022, more than 9,000 14-year-old girls (the age of consent varies from state to state but the youngest is 15) gave birth in Mexico, and there were more than 56,000 reported cases of sexual abuse and rape. In 2022, a 13-year-old girl in Chihuahua state was denied an abortion. Another 13-year-old suffered the same fate in the state of Sonora in 2016.
