MEXICO CITY (AP) — When Patricia Mendez miscarried in March 2015, she says police and detectives were called into the hospital ward to watch as she writhed in pain and expelled the dead, 20-week fetus.

"I was naked, with just the robe they give you, and I had all of them around as I miscarried," the 21-year-old recalled. "I was in a lot of pain, but nobody did anything. They just said, 'Confess, you have committed the worst sin in the world.'"

Eighteen of Mexico's 32 states have passed so-called right-to-life measures that have drawn criticism from women's rights activists, all in response to a 2008 law legalizing abortion in Mexico City. The legislation ranges from constitutional changes that outline general principles on protecting life from inception to a law in Veracruz state, where Mendez miscarried, that calls for unspecified "educational measures" for women who abort.

Mendez's lawyers hope to get Mexico's Supreme Court to overturn the Veracruz law, but on Wednesday the court declined to hear the case and returned it to the courts in Veracruz.