By Ileana Fernandez
December 16, 2023
In a recent interview, President Rodrigo Chaves of Costa Rica acknowledged the possibility of withdrawing the country from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court) if the court mandates changes to national legislation on abortion.
The discussion arose in connection with the ongoing analysis of the “Beatriz case” against El Salvador by the IACHR Court.
Continued: https://ticotimes.net/2023/12/16/costa-rica-threatens-iachr-departure-on-abortion
By María Teresa Hernández, The Associated Press
Saturday, December 16, 2023
MEXICO CITY (AP) — In a corner of their Mexico City office, activists from Catholics for the Right to Decide keep an image of the Virgin Mary close to a green scarf that reads: “Mary was consulted to be mother of God.”
For these Catholic women, prayer does not conflict with their fight for abortion access nor does their devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe prevent them from supporting LGBTQ+ rights.
By Olivia Goldhill
Dec. 7, 2023
TIJUANA, Mexico — Just over a decade ago, when Crystal Pérez Lira needed an abortion, she had to leave Mexico. The procedure was illegal in her home state of Baja California and so deeply stigmatized that even Pérez Lira supported the procedure only for those who were raped. Until she unexpectedly got pregnant.
She traveled to the U.S. for help, walking alone across the border from Tijuana to San Diego, first for a health check and a compulsory ultrasound, and then back for a second appointment, when she was given pills to induce an abortion. She returned to Mexico, where she went through the procedure at a friend’s house.
Sat December 2, 2023
(and 48-second podcast by Mickel Jackson, Executive Director of Jamaicans for Justice)
Human rights group Jamaicans for Justice has added its voice to those advocating for the decriminalizing of abortion.
Government MP Juliet Cuthbert Flynn and her Opposition colleague Lisa Hannah have both, on separate occasions, called for parliamentary action to amend the country's abortion law.
Continued: https://radiojamaicanewsonline.com/local/jfj-pushes-for-abortion-to-be-legalised
“Whoever needs our help, we would be happy to serve.”
ABBY VESOULIS
Nov 22, 2023
One last-minute round-trip flight from Biloxi, Mississippi, to Cancún, Mexico, runs about $171 USD; three nights at a three-star hotel there can cost as little as $129. A three-day car rental in the resort town rings in at just $20 per day. And the price for one surgical abortion at MSI Reproductive Choices’ Cancún clinic would be about $350. The total cost for a trip to Cancún to access reproductive health services no longer available in some American states? $710.
Starting November 23, when the international sexual health organization MSI Reproductive Health Services opens the doors to its first Cancún reproductive health center, a pregnant American from a US state where abortion is banned could find the procedure to be both more affordable and more accessible in Mexico. Quintana Roo, the Mexican state where Cancún is located, has become one of at least a dozen Mexican states to decriminalize abortion in the last two years amid a series of judicial rulings that have strengthened reproductive rights, culminating in a September Mexican Supreme Court ruling that made state laws criminalizing abortion unconstitutional nationwide.
Restrictions on abortion are harsh in northern Mexico. But an ‘underground railroad’ is filling the gap in services
Dánae Vílchez, Verónica Martínez
21 November 2023
Alma (not her real name), a young Mexican woman, became pregnant unexpectedly in June 2021. She already had a child and had no plans to have another. But living in the northern border state of Sonora, she thought she had limited options. Abortion in Sonora is only permitted in cases of rape or if the life of the pregnant person is at risk – neither of which applied to Alma – and people can be imprisoned for up to six years.
Then, a friend told her a closely guarded secret. An ‘underground railroad’ of pro-choice activists could help Alma find a safe way to terminate her pregnancy in Hermosillo, the state capital.
Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/mexico-us-feminist-women-human-rights-abortion/
Naomi Braine's book Abortion Beyond the Law digs into how self-managed abortion emerges from new technologies while building on previous feminist movements.
NOV 14, 2023
NAOMI BRAINE
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, they upended a way of organizing medical care—and life—that women of reproductive age in the United States largely took for granted. In June 2022, when the Dobbs decision was officially released, abortion had been legal for 49 years, and while it had been increasingly difficult to access in much of the United States, there is a vast difference between “inaccessible” and “illegal.” In states that have banned abortion, doctors (and hospital lawyers) calculate the odds of criminal prosecution and even incarceration as they make decisions about care for pregnant women with health conditions, often critical ones, that are incompatible with continuing a pregnancy. In states like Texas, where support for a person seeking an abortion has been criminalized, abortion funds have scrambled to figure out whether they can still operate and, in many cases, have had to close their doors and/or relocate to a different state.
By Olivia Goldhill
Nov. 9, 2023
MEXICO CITY — More than 5.6 million U.S. tourists head to Cancun every year, drawn to the Mexican port’s white sand beaches, all-inclusive resorts, and raucous nightlife. Soon there’s likely to be another reason to visit: MSI Reproductive Choices, an international reproductive health nonprofit, plans to open an abortion clinic in the city, partly designed to cater to travelers from the U.S. who are unable to get an abortion in their home states.
“You have a lot more direct flights to Cancun than to any other city in Mexico,” said Araceli Lopez Nava Vázquez, regional managing director of MSI Reproductive Choices in Latin America. “That was an important thing for us to consider…. We’re aiming to help more American women.”
Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2023/11/09/abortion-clinic-msi-cancun-mexico-americans
Mexican law allows abortion for victims of rape – but state hospitals and politicians often stand in their way
Dánae Vílchez, Verónica Martínez
2 November 2023
Mexican federal regulations to provide emergency abortion services to victims of rape are being systematically flouted by state government health workers and law enforcement bodies in regions bordering the US, an investigation by openDemocracy and La Verdad de Juárez has found.
Federal regulations permit women and girls to have an abortion if they are victims of rape. But hospitals and police in northern Mexican states – where there is a growing rate of sexual violence and high prevalence of under-age pregnancy – stop abused pregnant women from taking control of their healthcare decisions, say medical sources and rights advocates.
Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide in September, but reproductive rights advocates grapple with the challenge of “social decriminalization.”
Nov. 2, 2023
By Isabela Espadas Barros Leal
MEXICO CITY — Every recovery room at Fundación ILE, an abortion clinic in Mexico City’s Roma Sur neighborhood, is equipped with a small bed, blankets, sanitary pads and a turquoise journal.
The journals are filled with letters written by women minutes after having had abortions.
Some of them detail the reasons they chose to undergo the procedure. Others have messages of encouragement for the next women who will be in their position.
Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexico-abortion-legal-social-cultural-stigma-remains-rcna123029
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
LinkedIn