Mexican abortion advocates look to help women in US

By María Verza, The Associated Press
Wed., Jan. 19, 2022

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Decades ago, Mexican activists drove women into the United States to terminate their pregnancies at clinics. Now it’s women in the U.S. who are facing more challenges to accessing abortion services and again Mexican activists are stepping up to offer support.

The changing dynamic has to do with the reversal of the legal fortunes of abortion rights on both sides of the border and the expertise of Mexican activists in helping women overcome legal and social barriers.

Continued: https://www.thespec.com/ts/news/world/americas/2022/01/19/mexican-abortion-advocates-look-to-help-women-in-us.html

Mexican women’s solidarity defies Texas abortion law

Natalia Marques
January 3, 2022

Verónica Cruz of the Mexican women’s activist network Las Libres declared, “We aren’t afraid. … We are willing to face criminalization, because women’s lives matter more than their law.”

Cruz and other women in her organization say they will help bring U.S. women seeking abortion from Texas and other parts of the U.S. into Mexico, where abortion is now legal. They are also committed to providing women with medication abortion drugs — bring abortion pills into the U.S. or send them by mail.

Continued: https://www.liberationnews.org/mexican-womens-solidarity-defies-texas-abortion-law/

In coronavirus-hit Mexico, many women are ‘determined to not have babies’

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul
Jan 3, 2022

MEXICO CITY — Everyone knew the pandemic would bring death. Edith García Díaz thought it would also bring birth — lots of birth.

As a state health official, she worried that the crisis would impede access to contraceptives, leading to a rise in pregnancies. Doctors were swamped with covid-19 patients. Couples were hunkering down at home, afraid to go out. Early in the pandemic, Mexico’s population agency warned that the pandemic could result in 120,000 additional unplanned births — an unwelcome reversal in the long battle to tame the fertility rate.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/03/coronavirus-mexico-baby-bust/

2021: Changes in abortion laws worldwide

Poland has virtually banned abortion, and the United States is also looking at tightening restrictions. But other countries, like Thailand and Benin, have started to loosen their restrictive measures. An overview.

29.12.2021
Ines Eisele

Access to abortion has become easier over the decades, according to Leah Hoctor, the senior regional director for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She said that, with some exceptions, the global trend clearly points at liberalization. Several countries saw developments on the controversial issue over the last year.

Mexico: Penalizing abortion ruled unconstitutional
In September, the Supreme Court in Mexico, Latin America's second most populous country, declared an absolute ban on abortion unconstitutional. The right of women to reproductive self-determination is to be valued more highly than the protection of the fetus, the court said. With the ruling, the judges overturned an abortion ban in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/2021-changes-in-abortion-laws-worldwide/a-60280568

A Plan Forms in Mexico: Help Americans Get Abortions

Mexican activists plan to provide women in Texas and other U.S. states with information, support — and abortion-inducing pills.

By Natalie Kitroeff
Dec. 20, 2021

GUANAJUATO, Mexico — Verónica Cruz spent years defying the law in Mexico, helping thousands of women get abortions. Now that Mexico has declared that abortion is no longer a crime, Ms. Cruz and activists like her are planning to bring their mission to a country moving in the opposite direction: the United States.

Abortion restrictions have been multiplying across the United States for years, including just over Mexico’s border in Texas. Now the Supreme Court is considering a case that could diminish or completely overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion. That would likely set off new restrictions in at least 20 states.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/world/americas/mexico-abortion-pill-activists.html

The Legalization of Abortion in Mexico City: Reproductive Rights and Impact

By Alia Shelesh
December 10, 2021

The law on abortion in Mexico is formulated at the state level, and before this reform, abortions were only permitted under very limited circumstances such as rape, fetal malformations, or extreme circumstances such as a woman’s life or health. Even when they were legal, abortions were common even when they were legal.3,4 Nevertheless, abortions were widely practiced during this period. Based on one study, the incidence of induced abortions in Mexico in 2006 was 33 abortions per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 years, which is high by global standards.5 However, due to legal restrictions, the vast majority of abortions in Mexico took place clandestinely, often in unsafe conditions, resulting in severe health consequences for women. In Mexico from 1990 to 2008, 7.2% of all maternal deaths occurred as a result of abortion6. Another study estimated that 149 700 women were hospitalized as a result of complications following induced abortions in 2006.

Continued: https://starsfact.com/the-legalization-of-abortion-in-mexico-city-reproductive-rights-and-impact/

10.12.2021

Mexican Abortion Activists Mobilize to Aid Texans

Podcast: 13:50 mins
With Dorothy Wickenden
November 22, 2021

Mexico is a deeply Catholic nation where abortion was, for a long time, criminalized in many states; just a few years ago, Coahuila, near the U.S. border, imposed jail time on women who underwent the procedure. But, this year, as Stephania Taladrid reported, Mexico’s ten-member Supreme Court voted unanimously to decriminalize abortion throughout the country—a decision that shocked even longtime activists. Before Mexican pro-choice advocates had finished celebrating, though, they turned their attention north to Texas, which has, with Senate Bill 8, essentially banned most abortions. (The law is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.) Texans may now find themselves crossing the border to obtain legal abortions. Taladrid spoke to activists who are sending medications that induce abortion—which are available over the counter in Mexico—across the border into Texas. As the legal scholar Jeannie Suk Gersen explains, however, a new Texas law criminalizes delivering those medications to pregnant women, potentially placing these activists at risk.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/political-scene/mexican-abortion-activists-mobilize-to-aid-texans

Mexico’s Historic Step Toward Legalizing Abortion

A landmark court ruling gave Mexicans greater rights to the procedure than Texans now have, but opponents have vowed to reverse the decision.

By Stephania Taladrid
October 28, 2021

On September 6th, Laura Hernández turned on her TV and began to record an event that she had waited for years to witness: the Mexican Supreme Court’s ruling on whether the criminalization of abortion was constitutional. A psychologist by training and a native of the northern state of Coahuila, Hernández is the co-founder of Acompañantes Laguna, a network of volunteers that has helped thousands of people obtain abortions over the years. Until recently, Coahuila, which borders Texas, had stringent prohibitions on abortion. Under a law passed in 2017, people could face between one and three years in prison for ending their pregnancy. The state, one of the country’s wealthiest, also has some of the highest teen-age-pregnancy rates in Mexico, which ranks first among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in that criterion. It was in Coahuila that the case considered by the Supreme Court originated four years ago.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mexicos-historic-step-toward-legalizing-abortion

The new anti-abortion tactics of the far right in the Americas

ISABELLA COTASTEPHANIA CORPI
OCT 24, 2021

An EL PAÍS investigation in five Latin American countries has found that a network of centers affiliated with the far-right US organization Heartbeat International (HI) promote themselves online as feminist support groups and use misleading language in favor of abortion, but in reality they work to manipulate and institutionalize women to get them to carry their pregnancy to term.

Five female reporters and one male reporter went undercover to centers in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico between 2019 and 2021, as a follow-up to an OpenDemocracy investigation into HI’s operations in the region.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-10-24/the-new-anti-abortion-tactics-of-the-far-right-in-the-americas.html

24.10.2021

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Women’s Institute of Comprehensive Health

Abortion in Mexico: Fight for rights just beginning, women say

By Will Grant, BBC Mexico correspondent
Oct 23, 2021

Few customers who get into Paulina Ramírez's taxi know her awful story. But 20 years ago, the so-called Paulina Case made headlines around the world, her name synonymous with Mexico's strict rules and attitudes on abortion.

In 1999, aged 13, Paulina was raped and was left pregnant by a man who broke into her family's home. Following the brutal attack, she sought an abortion, fully legal in Mexico in cases of rape. However, Paulina was harangued by conservative doctors, state officials and priests who put up constant obstacles to stop her from terminating the pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58900532