Mexico: If raped, minors can abort without parents’ consent

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that an underage girl can get an abortion without parental consent if she had been raped.

The court ruled that it was not necessary to have filed a crime report about the rape; the victim only has to swear she was raped.

The court held last year that it was unconstitutional to punish abortion. As Mexico’s highest court, its ruling bars all jurisdictions from charging a woman with a crime for terminating a pregnancy.

Statutes outlawing abortion are still on the books in most of Mexico’s 32 states, however, and nongovernmental organizations that have long pushed for decriminalization are pressing state legislatures to reform them. Abortion was already readily available in Mexico City and some states.