Caso Paulina: En El Nombre de la Ley Documentary
In 1999, the story of “Paulina,” a 13-year-old girl in Baja California, Mexico captured national attention. Raped and impregnated, she filed a report with public officials. Under the state Penal Code, she had the legal right to an abortion as a rape victim. However, her story demonstrates the significant disconnect between law and practice within abortion policy in Mexico.
While no state official, judicial member, or health physician denied her an abortion, together they effectively delayed the process so as her pregnancy developed past the abortive stages. The officials also provided her with graphic information as discouragement.
These administrative barriers compound with other structural barriers, including poverty and rural living situations. In the process of continuous attempts at obtaining a safe and legal abortion, Paulina’s family paid huge bills to judicial and health systems. In the end, Paulina carried her pregnancy to term.
The state’s involvement in women’s decisions undermines women’s reproductive rights. State officials and medical professionals assert their decision-making power by making information inaccessible. While abortion may be legal in all states in cases of rape, twenty-nine out of thirty-two states have no clear legal guidelines to ensure the safe and rapid access to abortion for all women. Additionally, the lack of guidelines is yet another method of preventing the distribution of information as well as removing the opportunity to hold physicians accountable for objections to perform legal abortions.
Paulina’s case instigated congressional debates in Guanajuato, Morelos and the Federal District. Consequently, these three states all reformed their Penal Codes to include more exceptions for abortion. The national media coverage that Paulina’s case received, the explicit demonstration of numerous obstructions to a legal abortion, and the 2000 presidential election pushed abortion to the forefront of Mexican politics at the turn of the century.
Paulina’s case highlighted the problems with the inconsistencies in Mexico’s abortion policies, the ability of state and medical officials to undermine women’s access to abortion, and effectively mobilized groups to bring attention to these significant discontinuities between law and execution of the law. This case demonstrates the importance of national media coverage on the abortion issue in order to instigate international and domestic pressures on a government to liberalize policy according to international standards.
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