The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. Abortion also became legal in Puerto Rico as a consequence of this decision. (However, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, later, in 2022.) The Puerto Rican Supreme Court oversaw the case of the People of Puerto Rico v. Pablo Duarte Mendoza in 1980. Their ruling was effectively a territory specific answer to a question already answered by the US Supreme Court in the earlier Roe v. Wade. The 1980 case involved Dr. Pablo Duarte Mendoza being charged in 1973 for allegedly performing an illegal abortion on a 16-year-old girl in violation of Puerto Rico's 1937 abortion laws. Duarte was given a sentence of two to four years around the time that the 1937 law was being repealed and replaced with a law that provided women with greater access to abortion services. Duarte appealed the sentence to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, which overturned the sentence given by the Puerto Rico Superior Court, citing the needs of the doctor to be able to consider a woman's health issues in the first trimester, with the women's health being a primary factor in whether or not an abortion should occur. The Supreme Court said that the issues of the health of the pregnant woman trumped any concern about her age.
