Dear Editor,
Almost simultaneously Texas’ Governor Abbott eliminated women’s access to abortion, while the Supreme Court in Mexico voted overwhelmingly to advance women’s choice. Abbott has signed a law that effectively blocks access to safe abortions. The law prevents abortions after six weeks when fewer than 15% of women even know they are pregnant. It creates citizen vigilantes by empowering anti-choice persons to sue anyone involved in assisting a woman seeking an abortion. Anyone – a relative, a taxi driver, a receptionist, a parent, etc. More, if the person suing wins, the defendant must pay that person at least $10,000 and their attorney’s fees. Yet if the defendant wins, she is stuck with her own attorney’s fees. This is a mechanism to intimidate, to generate fear, close clinics, enrich the anti-choice, and impoverish the pro-choice. It will not stop abortions. It will make them unsafe for the poor. And, of course, it will have no impact whatsoever on those who can afford to hop on a plane and go to another state. How does this cruel suppression of women’s choice and disregard for their health distinguish Texas from the Taliban? This is zealotry on stilts.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, second only to Brazil, as the most populous Catholic country in the world, all ten judges present voted to make abortion more broadly legal by declaring a punitive law in Coahuila state unconstitutional. The eleventh judge was absent. That majority is significant. In Mexico when at least eight Supreme Court justices support an issue, it can no longer be subject to state legislation. This means that the political whiplash that has occurred with presidential elections and state legislatures ever since Roe v Wade in the US, will not occur in Mexico. The legal victory in Mexico will not make abortions safe tomorrow. Now, the really hard task of building institutions to deliver services and the harder task of changing values, especially among men, respecting women’s private choice, and erasing stigma begins.
Sincerely,
Fred Nunes