Opposition to Abortion in Mexico and the United States: Courts, Federalism, and Policy Type

Courts have become key players in morality politics. Given that value-loaded policies often touch upon fundamental principles enshrined in constitutions, such as human rights or individual freedoms, liberalizing reform has been increasingly brought about by the judicial branch as the arbiter of constitutional disputes. This is especially the case in dual federal systems, where moral conflicts may extend to formal power-sharing agreements between central governments and subnational units. While some studies have focused on judicial activism as a determinant of morality policy reform, little is known about the aftermath of landmark judicial liberalizations. At the same time, scholars have so far dedicated limited attention to how federal structures may enable opposition to progressive policy change. By focusing on those actors opposing reform, this paper explores how federalism provides opportunities for resistance to progressive moral gender policies resulting from judicial decisions. Through a comparative analysis of two near-identical federations, namely the U.S. and Mexico, we shed light on how conservative countermobilization may successfully shape the fate of watershed court rulings expanding abortion access. Drawing on qualitative evidence, we trace reactions against watershed liberalizations and find that the scope of judicial rulings, that is, whether they apply to the federal or the subnational level, matters for antiabortion actors’ strategies. In the wake of federal-level decisions that nationalize a specific policy output, such as Roe v. Wade in the US, conservative actors seek to obstruct the implementation of progressive reform at state level through a patchwork of different types of restrictive measures. By contrast, when verdicts concern a single subnational entity, as in the case of the Mexican Supreme Court ruling upholding Mexico City’s expanded access to abortion, opponents aim to prevent the further spread of policy liberalization across federal states or provinces by pushing for almost identical subnational bans on abortion.