Mexico's Supreme Court on Wednesday decriminalised abortion across the conservative Latin American country, moving in contrast to the United States where federally guaranteed abortion rights were overturned last year.

The court said on social media "that the legal system that penalises abortion in the Federal Penal Code is unconstitutional, since it violates the human rights of women and people with the capacity to gestate."

It follows a similar Supreme Court ruling two years ago that abortion was not a crime, de facto authorizing it throughout Mexico.

That declaration followed a constitutional challenge to the penal code of the northern state of Coahuila, opening the way for women across the country to access the procedure without fear of prosecution.

The Information Group on Reproductive Choice (GIRE), which campaigns for abortion rights, welcomed the latest step decriminalising abortion at the national level.

"Federal health institutions throughout the country will have to provide abortion services to women and people with the capacity to gestate who request it," the group said on social media.

Mexico's reforms go in the opposite direction to the United States, where a Supreme Court ruling in June 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 "Roe v. Wade" decision guaranteeing the right to abortion nationwide

The situation has led to some women from the United States seeking help to have an abortion from activists across the border in Mexico.

(AFP)

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