The Mexican supreme court has struck down laws protecting unborn human life in every state of the federal republic.

The court said that laws penalising abortion “violate the human rights of women and people with the ability to gestate”. It decriminalised the procedure.

The decision will require the federal public health service and all federal health institutions to offer abortion to anyone who requests it with no gestational limit.

It comes after years of incremental legal moves by the court, which had decriminalised abortion on a state-by-state basis. Eleven of the country’s states, as well as the capital, Mexico City, already permit the procedure in certain circumstances.

Courts in the 20 states which still criminalise abortion will now have to abide by the supreme court’s decision, although campaigners say there will still fight to get the law changed in every state.