After clerical criticism, the Court stops the project against anti-abortion reforms in Aguascalientes

Iván Evair Saldaña

La Jornada Newspaper
Wednesday, December 17, 2025, p. 9

After the criticism made by the Primate Archdiocese of Mexico last Sunday, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) removed from the list of issues to be discussed at the beginning of next year the project of Minister Irving Espinosa Betanzo, which proposes reversing the Aguascalientes reform that reduced the maximum period for an abortion from 12 to six weeks.

Until last Monday, the project remained public and scheduled for analysis on January 6. That same day, the speaker stated that the initiative had already been disseminated and that the plenary session would determine its eventual approval.

“Something must be said, abortion has already been decriminalized in Mexico since 2023,” said Espinoza when asked about the clerical criticism.

Last Sunday, the Archdiocese published the editorial “Contempt for human life in the Court”, in the Catholic weekly From faithin which he accused that the project in the country’s highest court seeks the “total decriminalization” of the interruption of pregnancy.

“The biggest surprise consists of the scope sought in the ruling: eliminating the criminal offense of abortion, that is, allowing the abortion of developing human beings during the 9 months of pregnancy, without taking into account the well-being of the mother or the child,” the editorial noted.

The reform of September 23, 2024 to the Penal Code and the Law for the Protection of Life of the State of Aguascalientes were challenged through unconstitutionality actions 172/2024 and 173/2024, promoted in October 2024 by the then legal advisor of the Federal Executive, Ernestina Godoy, and by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH).

In his project, Irving Espinosa concludes that criminalizing self-provided or consented abortion in Aguascalientes violates the right to decide, to health and equality, and that setting a six-week deadline is a regressive measure that hinders an informed decision. For this reason, it proposes to invalidate in their entirety articles 101, 103 and 196 of the local Penal Code, eliminating the criminalization of voluntary abortion, with retroactive effects to the entry into force of these regulations.

Although the project may be re-listed, the reasons for its withdrawal and the date on which it would be rescheduled are currently unknown. The rapporteur minister’s team denied to this newspaper that he had requested to remove it from the agenda.