Safe abortion, an opportunity to have chosen maternities

– Safe abortion allows women and other able-bodied people to decide if and when they want to have children and to plan other aspects of their lives.
– At Ipas LAC, we believe that in order to achieve equality and non-discrimination, legislators must guarantee the rights of women living in states where abortion is still criminalized.

Mexico City, May 10, 2023. Safe abortion allows women and other people with childbearing capacity to have chosen motherhood: to decide whether or not to become mothers, when they want to become mothers, and to plan other aspects of how they want to carry out this experience, according to statistics from the public program Interrupción Legal del Embarazo (ILE), which for 16 years has offered abortion services in Mexico City.

For women who want to become mothers there is a federal program that covers their needs, however, a national policy or strategy has not yet been created in Mexico for women and people with childbearing capacity who do not want to have children, and therefore require services such as termination of pregnancy to plan a life where their sexual and reproductive rights are respected.

This is important because women become pregnant without wanting to for a variety of reasons, many of them beyond their consent and control, for example, contraceptive methods that fail or sexual abuse. And, in addition, some cannot continue with a pregnancy when it seriously affects their health.

Given these situations, the public abortion program is an example of a model that can be replicated in other states or at the national level to offer abortion as another gynecological service that preserves women’s health and protects their rights.

Statistics from the Mexico City program show that when women have the possibility of terminating a pregnancy, they delay having their first child or reinforce their decision not to become mothers. Of the total number of women who used the ILE service and who did provide information on the number of children they had (194,940), 40 percent said they had no children, according to the program’s most recent statistics.

On the other hand, 28 percent of women who accessed this service and provided information about it had one child and 32 percent were mothers of 2 or more children. This means that safe abortion also helps women make decisions about the size of their families and have the opportunity to consider other aspects such as socioeconomic issues.

The possibility of having an abortion in public services in Mexico City allows for decisions such as the above, but the continued criminalization of this procedure in 21 states of the republic places women living in those places in a situation of inequality.

The above is also demonstrated by the fertility rate. According to data from the 2018 National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID), for the five-year period 2013-2017, in Mexico, the total fertility rate was 2.21 children per woman of reproductive age.

This study includes significant differences by state: while in Chiapas, where abortion is still penalized, it is almost three (2.80) children per woman of reproductive age, in Mexico City it is 1.34, the lowest in the country.

“We hope that soon the remaining states will recognize that they have a historical debt with women and that they must comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling. In order to achieve equality and non-discrimination, legislators must guarantee the same rights to women living in states where it is still criminalized,” said Fernanda Diaz de Leon, deputy director of advocacy for Ipas Latin America and the Caribbean (Ipas LAC).

With these figures, one could conclude that women decide to have fewer children where abortion is legal, such as in Mexico City, however, one must also consider that this decline in fertility is due to several factors. Recent research published by Ipas LAC shows the impact that family planning programs have had on the population, which have focused on disseminating and providing the necessary means to regulate birth rates.

On the other hand, ILE statistics show that its users make the decision to terminate a pregnancy at key moments in their lives. In terms of age, 45 percent of women who requested abortion services were between 18 and 24 years of age, followed by women between 25 and 29 years of age, who accounted for 25 percent.

Being able to decide when to be a mother or not to be a mother also affects how women can pursue their studies or other life plans and allows them to make more free choices about their sexual relationships. Sixty-one percent of ILE users had high school or higher education and 40 percent were in a relationship (11 percent married; 29 percent common-law).

At Ipas LAC, we believe that safe abortion and decriminalization of this health service allows for more maternity choices and increases the autonomy of Mexican women to make decisions about their lives.