USA – Inside the Secretive Network of Abortion Pill Vigilantes

Since the fall of Roe, a covert chain of activists have banded together to provide abortion medication to those in red states—and they’re risking everything in the process.

Decca Muldowney
May 23, 2023

Denny spends many of their days sitting on their bed packing small pills into plastic ziplock bags, and then into brown envelopes, ready to be mailed out to people seeking abortion medications in states like Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.

The pills are mifepristone and misoprostol—two medications that are the subject of intense political and legal debate. Every package of pills Denny mails out puts them in danger. But they won’t stop doing it.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/abortion-pill-vigilantes-are-operating-a-covert-network-from-mexico-to-republican-states

How feminist groups in Mexico are aiding abortion seekers in the U.S.

“Getting abortion pills into the U.S. is not as much of a challenge as being safe online,” say abortion companions.

By LORENA RÍOS and DANIELA DIB
8 MAY 2023

Over the past 11 months, some members of Tijuana-based feminist organization Colectiva Bloodys y Projects have reported an increase in demand for their services. The organization provides information on at-home medical abortions and how to access medical abortion pills through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Crystal P. Lira, an abortion assistant at Colectiva Bloodys y Projects, told Rest of World that the recent surge in demand, to a great extent, has come from people based in the U.S.

According to abortion assistants at organizations like Colectiva Bloodys, this uptick coincides with the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last June, which had ended previous protections on abortion rights at the federal level. In 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to punish abortion as a crime. Verónica Cruz, director of abortion assistance organization Las Libres, told Rest of World her group was now dealing with 200 to 300 calls from the U.S. every day.

Continued: https://restofworld.org/2023/mexican-women-help-us-abortion-seekers/

Mexican Activists Help US Women Get Abortion

April 11, 2023
by VOA

Marcela Castro’s office in Chihuahua is more than 150 kilometers from the United States-Mexico border. But the distance does not prevent her from assisting women in the U.S. to go around the recent bans on abortion, a medical procedure to end a pregnancy.

Castro and her coworkers work for Marea Verde Chihuahua. The organization of mostly volunteers has supported reproductive rights in northern Mexico since 2018. They provide virtual guidance and abortion pills for women who want to end a pregnancy on their own.

Continued: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/mexican-activists-help-us-women-get-abortion/7034400.html

Activists’ network in Mexico helps U.S. women get abortions

A network of abortion-rights activists in Mexico is finding ways to offer assistance -- including shipments of abortion pills -- to women in the United States affected by recently imposed abortion bans in several states

By MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ, Associated Press
April 2, 2023

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico -- Marcela Castro’s office in Chihuahua is more than 100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, yet the distance doesn’t prevent her from assisting women in the United States in circumventing recently imposed bans on abortion.

From the headquarters of Marea Verde Chihuahua, an organization that has supported reproductive rights in northern Mexico since 2018, Castro and her colleagues provide virtual guidance, as well as shipments of abortion pills for women who want to terminate a pregnancy on their own.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/activists-network-mexico-helps-us-women-abortions-98299876

As Conservatives Try to Ban the Abortion Pill Mifepristone, New Research Shows Accessible Ulcer Drug Safely Ends Pregnancy Up to 12 Weeks

Mifepristone’s future is shaky—but women and pregnant people can still access misoprostol, a highly effective and medically safe method to end an early pregnancy.

2/14/2023
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

Over half of clinician-supervised abortions in the U.S. in 2020 were done with a combination of two medications: mifepristone and misoprostol. A Trump-appointed judge in Texas will soon decide a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion extremists asking him to force mifepristone off the market in all 50 states. If he does, as anticipated, reproductive rights advocates are ready to offer a safe and effective alternative to end pregnancy through three months: a higher dosage of misoprostol taken alone.

Misoprostol is a widely available ulcer medication that can induce a miscarriage by causing contractions of the uterus to expel a pregnancy. In the 1980s, Brazilian women began using misoprostol to end their pregnancies because abortion was unavailable through the medical system. Self-managed abortion with misoprostol resulted in precipitous declines in infection, hemorrhaging and death from unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/02/14/misoprostol-abortion/

Texas – El Paso woman defies state abortion bans

by Victoria Rossi
December 11, 2022

Ruth runs through a checklist as she packs. There’s ginger chews for nausea, chamomile tea for calm, two thick pads for bleeding. Inside seed packets of cantaloupes, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, she slips two smaller plastic baggies containing abortion pills, which she’s labeled by hand.

A few months earlier, Ruth would feel her heart pound as she assembled the kits, a rush of adrenaline as she drove to mail them, wondering if she’d get stopped – and if stopped, arrested. Now, she said, “The fear is gone. And I’m just at righteous indignation.”

Continued: https://elpasomatters.org/2022/12/11/el-paso-texas-woman-distributing-abortion-pills-defies-bans/

La Lucha Sigue: Lessons From Latin America’s Abortion Victories

Abortion advocates reeling from the end of Roe v. Wade can look to Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina for perspective, strategy, and hope.

Winter 2023, Bodies: In Depth
BY TINA VASQUEZ

NOV 21, 2022

The abortion rights movement in the United States is in the fight of its life. Although the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization gave advance notice that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision was still a devastating blow. In the months since, the situation has only become more dire for people in need of abortion care. As of October 2022, abortion is banned or severely restricted in 15 states, with 11 additional states and territories threatening to restrict or eliminate access.

As a result, people needing abortions in the U.S. are looking everywhere to find health care—including across the border.

Continued: https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/bodies/2022/11/21/la-lucha-sigue-lessons-from-latin-americas-abortion-victories

Desperate pleas and smuggled pills: A covert abortion network rises after Roe

Amid legal and medical risks, a growing army of activists is funneling pills from Mexico into states that have banned abortion

By Caroline Kitchener
October 18, 2022

Monica had never used Reddit before. But sitting at her desk one afternoon in July — at least 10 weeks into an unwanted pregnancy in a state that had banned abortion — she didn’t know where else to turn.

“I need advice I am not prepared to have a child,” the 25-year-old wrote from her office, once everyone else had left for the day. She titled her post, “PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/18/illegal-abortion-pill-network/

The Post-Roe Abortion Underground

A multigenerational network of activists is getting abortion pills across the Mexican border to Americans.

By Stephania Taladrid
October 10, 2022

The handoff was planned for late afternoon on a weekday, at an underused trailhead in a Texas park. The young woman carrying the pills, whom I’ll call Anna, arrived in advance of the designated time, as was her habit, to throw off anyone who might try to use her license plates to trace her identity. She felt slightly absurd in her disguise—sun hat, oversized sunglasses, plain black mask. But the pills in her pocket were used to induce abortions, and in Texas, her home state, their distribution now required such subterfuge, along with burner phones and the encrypted messaging app Signal. Since late June, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Texas and thirteen other states had effectively banned abortion, and more were sure to follow. In some of the states, laws that originated as far back as the nineteenth century had been restored. Providing the tools for an abortion in Texas had become a felony that could lead to years in prison, and a fellow-citizen could sue Anna and collect upward of ten thousand dollars for every abortion she was found to abet.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/17/the-post-roe-abortion-underground

One-third of American women have lost abortion rights since Roe v. Wade overturned

Shelley Connor
Aug 29, 2022

Nearly a third of American women, around 21 million, lost access to abortion immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. This week, trigger laws in five states have deprived even more of the right as trigger laws in states like Idaho and Texas went into effect. Thirty-six percent of American women will lose abortion rights should courts lift injunctions blocking anti-abortion legislation in other states.

On Thursday, legislation outlawing most abortions went into effect in Texas, Idaho and Tennessee. A stipulation in Idaho’s law, which would have made it illegal for doctors to perform abortions to preserve the mother’s health, was blocked by a federal judge. In Texas, abortion providers now face felony charges and can be sentenced to life in prison.

Continued: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/29/ickq-a29.html

29.08.2022