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

Sandra Cardona Alanís

traveling for abortion

’I need an abortion’: The text that gets pills sent in secret

Leire Ventas, BBC News Mundo, Los Angeles
Aug 25, 2022

Anna*, 23, knew that she could not have another child. She also knew that she wouldn't get an abortion in Texas, where she lives, as the state has one of the strictest abortion laws in the United States.

So the mother of a four-month-old turned to social media to search for solutions. She found a number online, and sent a desperate text on WhatsApp: "I need an abortion".

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61874921

Hundreds of Americans a week are seeking abortion help from Mexico – and most of them want a safe hand-off of abortion drugs at the border

Isabella Zavarise and Azmi Haroun
Aug 21, 2022

Over the last decade, Mexico's movement to access abortion has notched several victories in the halls of justice. But north of the border, the landscape of abortion availability continues to move in the opposite direction.

Fifteen years ago, abortion was a crime in Mexico. In 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court challenged the ruling, stating that abortion would no longer be criminalized. In states like Mexico City and Oaxaca, abortion is legal. Now, Mexican advocates told Insider that Americans are crossing the border for support that is difficult to find – or illegal – in some US states.

Continued: https://www.businessinsider.com/hundreds-of-americans-a-week-are-seeking-abortion-help-from-mexico-2022-8

Volunteer networks in Mexico aid at-home abortions without involving doctors or clinics. They’re coming to Texas.

Before abortion was legal in parts of Mexico, an extensive “accompaniment” system grew to help women safely terminate pregnancies on their own. Its organizers are now moving abortion-inducing medication across the border and helping replicate the system in the United States.

BY ALEXA URA AND GRETA DÍAZ GONZÁLEZ VÁZQUEZ
AUG. 4, 2022

MONTERREY, Mexico — Hi, I’m four weeks pregnant. Eight weeks. Six weeks.

The stream of pings and messages through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp reach Sandra Cardona Alanís at her home in this mountainous region of northern Mexico. She is an acompañante and a founder of Necesito Abortar México, a volunteer network that has helped thousands of people across Mexico access abortion, usually at home, by providing medication and support.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/04/texas-abortion-mexico-volunteer-networks/

Let’s Talk About Misoprostol—the Original Abortion Pill

7/28/2022
by CAITLIN GERDTS, RUVANI JAYAWEERA and CARRIE N. BAKER
The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has paved the way for more than half of U.S. states to outlaw abortion. As we look to the future of abortion in the U.S., we can learn from the experiences of people in countries with restrictive abortion laws who have managed to find safe, effective ways to have abortions by using the original abortion pill: misoprostol.

In the 1980s, Brazilians discovered that an ulcer medication, misoprostol, could induce a miscarriage by causing contractions of the uterus to expel a pregnancy. Across Latin America, women and other people who can become pregnant began to use misoprostol to manage their own abortions. Infection, hemorrhaging and death from unsafe abortion declined precipitously.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/07/28/misoprostol-abortion-pill/

People From the US Flee to Mexico for Abortion Care

Roe v. Wade's reversal means more people from the United States are fleeing to Mexico to receive abortion care.

By Jessica Washington
July 24, 2022

In news that might shock the “build that wall” types, it turns out that people from the United States are now fleeing to Mexico to get adequate health care.

You see, late last year, Mexico’s Supreme Court finally decriminalized abortion.

Continued: https://www.theroot.com/people-from-the-us-flee-to-mexico-for-abortion-care-1849321534

24.07.2022