A New Border Crossing: Americans Turn to Mexico for Abortions

American women are seeking help from Mexico for abortions, crystallizing the shifting policies of two nations that once held vastly different positions on the procedure.

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Edyra Espriella
Sept. 25, 2023

The text message Cynthia Menchaca received this summer was one she was seeing more and more: A woman living in Texas said she had left a violent relationship only to discover she was pregnant, and she desperately wanted an abortion. The woman had learned that Ms. Menchaca could send her abortion pills from Mexico, where the procedure has been decriminalized in several states.

But the growing U.S. demand for abortion care is not limited to deliveries of medication, according to advocates like Ms. Menchaca, who lives in Coahuila state in northeastern Mexico.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/world/americas/mexico-abortion-women-border.html

UK – Calls to change ‘archaic’ abortion law as fifth woman faces court

Hannah Al-Othman and Megan Agnew
Sunday September 24 2023

A woman who has appeared in court accused of having an illegal abortion is the fifth reported to have been prosecuted this year.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of procuring “poison” — the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol — with intent to cause her own miscarriage. The offence, under section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, is alleged to have been committed in November 2020, during the second coronavirus lockdown.

Continued: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/calls-to-change-archaic-abortion-law-as-fifth-woman-faces-court-r86x6rjj0

24.09.2023

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

prosecuting women for abortion

self-managed abortion

Poland – The war on women who use abortion pills takes a terrifying new turn

Researchers in Poland have developed tests that can detect if a woman has taken mifepristone. It’s a chilling development

Arwa Mahdawi
Sat 16 Sep 2023

Have you ever come across a scientific study and immediately thought to yourself: why? What was the point of this work exactly? Why were resources and brainpower devoted to figuring this particular thing out?

Normally I have this thought when a study comes out about whether, for example, Viagra can help hamsters recover from jet lag (it can!) or whether mosquitoes like electronic dance music (not really!). On this occasion, however, it was prompted by news that researchers in Poland have developed tests that can detect whether a woman has taken mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs that are used in a medication abortion and colloquially known as abortion pills.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/16/abortion-pills-week-in-patriarchy-arwa-mahdawi

16.09.2023

There Are Now Tests That Can Detect If Someone Took Abortion Pills

The chilling development comes out of Poland, where prosecutors have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes, reports the New York Times.

By Susan Rinkunas, Jezebel
Sept 14, 2023

Scientists in Poland have reportedly developed lab tests that can detect whether people have taken abortion pills—and those tests are already being used to investigate pregnancy outcomes under the country’s abortion ban. This is an alarming development, to say the least, and unfortunately, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before a U.S. state replicates the effort.

According to a bone-chilling piece in the New York Times, Polish scientists have developed tests that can identify both mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs typically used in a medication abortion. (Though some people do use misoprostol alone.) The studies were part of a research project funded by the Polish government where researchers were able to find evidence of misoprostol in the placenta and mifepristone in a woman’s blood sample. A spokesperson for a prosecutor’s office in Wroclaw confirmed to the Times that Polish authorities have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes.

Continued; https://jezebel.com/there-are-now-tests-that-can-detect-if-someone-took-abo-1850839647

In Poland, Testing Women for Abortion Drugs Is a Reality. It Could Happen in the U.S.

Sept. 14, 2023
By Patrick Adams

Nearly three years ago, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal effectively ended legal abortion in the country. Since then, the Polish government has vigorously repressed the nation’s reproductive rights movement and ramped up surveillance of women who are suspected of terminating their pregnancies. Authorities have violently dispersed demonstrations, threatened activists with prison time and ordered doctors to record all pregnancies in a new national database.

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, Poland’s draconian crackdown, which was spearheaded by the governing right-wing Law and Justice party, should have been alarming to American supporters of abortion rights. It was always possible that some aspects of what has happened there could happen here.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/opinion/abortion-pills-testing-poland.html

Mexican abortion-pill networks reach across U.S. border to help immigrants without access

By Marien López-Medina, Kevin Palomino, April Pierdant and Tori Gantz
Sep 9, 2023

MONTERREY, Mexico — Verónica Cruz Sánchez watched something remarkable happen from the office of her women’s rights organization in Guanajuato, the capital city of one of this country’s most conservative Catholic states.

Founder of Las Libres — “the free” in English — she had built an underground abortion-pill network in a country where having the procedure could have meant going to jail.

In September 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that abortion was no longer a crime — not even in places like Guanajuato, where it continues to be outlawed by the state.

Continued: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/mexican-abortion-pill-networks-reach-across-u-s-border-to-help-immigrants-without-access/article_75ac1598-4d93-11ee-bd66-d34ec1a86685.html

UK – Mom documents at-home abortion to destigmatise abortion pills

‘Thank you for posting. I’ve never known how these kind of abortions work,’ viewer says

Kaleigh Werner
Aug 22, 2023

An internet-wide debate has resulted from one brave woman’s choice to detail her at-home abortion experience on TikTok.

On 20 July, a 24-year-old woman named Monica showed her TikTok followers how she completed her abortion, from the comfort of her home, for the first time at nine weeks pregnant. She began by showing the items she needed to prepare her body: the required prescription drug typically used for terminating early pregnancy, motion sickness medicine, a bottle of water, maxi pads, and Planned Parenthood’s timely instructions.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/mom-abortion-at-home-stigma-b2397061.html

22.08.2023

Monica abortion story

self-managed abortion

women's abortion stories

USA – ‘Pro-Life’ Propaganda Wants to Fool You About Abortion Pills

We must be free to make our own abortion decisions—including how and where we access abortion pills.

AUG 15, 2023
ERIN MATSON

As we enter year two of a post-Roe v. Wade world, it would be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attacks anti-abortion activists have launched since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned abortion rights. From abortion bans, to clinic harassment, to the criminalization of pregnant people and medical providers, it can be hard to keep track of all the ways in which reproductive freedom is under attack.

Particularly now, as we await the outcome of a lawsuit brought by abortion opponents to target mifepristone, one of two drugs used in a medication abortion, anti-abortion activists are using junk science to target medication abortion in a backdoor attempt to circumvent democracy and advance an aggressive nationwide abortion ban.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/08/15/pro-life-propaganda-wants-to-fool-you-about-abortion-pills/

15.08.2023

Commentary

abortion pills

anti-choice deception

anti-choice junk science

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice propaganda

Teesside woman accused of carrying out own abortion pleads not guilty

Bethany Cox, 22, will face trial next year over offences alleged to have taken place during first Covid lockdown in 2020

Mark Brown, North of England correspondent
Tue 15 Aug 2023

A 22-year-old woman has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging she illegally administered drugs in order to procure an abortion.

Bethany Cox, of Stockton-on-Tees appeared before the recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Watson KC, at Teesside crown court.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/15/teesside-woman-accused-of-carrying-out-own-abortion-pleads-not-guilty

15.08.2023

News

Bethany Cox

misoprostol

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

One Woman’s Story Of Self-Managing Her Abortion In An Anti-Choice State

Managing your own abortion is not a crime in Ohio, but a politically motivated prosecutor might believe Julia should be punished for what she did.

By Alanna Vagianos
Aug 7, 2023

SOMEWHERE IN OHIO — It’s a pretty short drive to the polling site from the cabin where Julia has been self-managing her abortion. Julia took the last of her abortion pills the day before, which she believes have ended her unwanted pregnancy. She still has some minor cramping and is tired from the whole ordeal, but she feels reasonably OK — well enough to go vote on a ballot referendum that could help decide the fate of abortion rights in Ohio.

Issue 1, a ballot initiative to raise the threshold to alter the state constitution from a simple majority — the standard in Ohio for over a century — to 60%, is a preemptive attempt to block a pro-choice constitutional amendment that Ohioans will vote on in November.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-womans-story-of-self-managing-her-abortion-in-an-anti-choice-state_n_64c03e6be4b053a7009335eb