Catholic activists work to help Hispanic women reconcile abortion rights with their religious faith

Jan 28, 2024

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.

“You might think that one cannot be a feminist and a Catholic,” said activist Cinthya Ramírez. “But being women of faith does not mean that we oppose progressivity, human rights or sexual diversity.”

Continued: https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/newswire/catholic-activists-work-help-hispanic-women-reconcile-abortion-rights-religious-faith/


A Mexican Underground Movement to Provide US Women Abortion Pills

These networks, led primarily by women, operate outside of the established medical world.

Isaiah Thompson
January 18, 2024

As abortion access becomes increasingly restricted across the United States, underground activist networks, known as “companion networks,” in Mexico are providing women with abortion medications—not just in their own country but across the US border, too.

These networks, led primarily by women, operate outside of the established medical world and the law to create access to abortion even in states where abortions have become effectively, if not literally, illegal.

Continued: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/a-mexican-underground-movement-to-provide-us-women-abortion-pills/


The Long Quest for Reproductive Justice in Mexico: Feminist Legal Strategies and Challenges to Changing Abortion Precedent in a Federal System

Alma Beltrán y Puga
January 15, 2024

As the Green Wave echoes throughout the Latin American feminist movement, the Mexican legal system has progressed accordingly. Feminist legal groups have adopted innovative legal strategies to solidify the right to abortion at the federal level, but state-level protections are still needed to satisfy the “my body, my choice” chants taking place in the streets. Similar to how feminist advocacy groups have gradually influenced legal theory, legal changes attempt to counter the conservative, religious perspective on bodily autonomy in Mexico.

Mexico has entered the international spotlight due to a recent federal Supreme Court ruling protecting abortion rights. This groundbreaking decision has resulted from the feminist movement’s continuous litigation and the Court’s 2021 case law both of which have promoted reproductive justice in Latin America. While innovative legal strategies in the feminist movement have characterized the fight for reproductive justice, Mexico’s federalist system presents ongoing challenges to abortion litigation in Mexico. The Supreme Court of Mexico’s major rulings regarding reproductive rights and the challenges of implementing this comprehensive constitutional jurisprudence in a federal system will be discussed.

Continued:  https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2024/01/15/the-long-quest-for-reproductive-justice-in-mexico-feminist-legal-strategies-and-challenges-to-changing-abortion-precedent-in-a-federal-system/


Catholic activists in Mexico help women reconcile their faith with abortion rights

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.

Continued: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/catholic-activists-in-mexico-help-women-reconcile-their-faith-with-abortion-rights/article_412ee0ae-cd6b-5406-8579-1e40297674d1.html


Mexico’s activist ‘companion networks’ quietly provide abortion pills and support to U.S. women

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.

Continued:  https://www.statnews.com/2023/12/07/mexican-abortion-activist-networks-provides-abortion-pills-united-states/


Mexico Has Become a Haven for Americans Seeking an Abortion

“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.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/mexico-has-become-a-haven-for-americans-seeking-an-abortion/


Inside the secretive network of pro-choice activists on the US-Mexico border

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/


Cancun abortion clinic aims to serve Americans from restrictive states

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


Public healthcare in northern Mexico is dodging federal rules on abortion

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.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/mexico-abortion-legal-rules-regulations-supreme-court-chihuahua-nuevo-leon-sonora/


Abortion is decriminalized in Mexico, but the social and cultural stigma remains

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