She wanted an abortion. Her only option was driving to Mexico.

An excerpt from 'Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in a Post-Roe America'

May 26, 2024
Shefali Luthra

This article, an excerpt from “Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in a Post-Roe America,” was originally published by The 19th.

Before Roe v. Wade fell, McAllen had been home to the last abortion clinic in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, and Becky, a lifelong Texan and young college student, knew the place by sight. It was where the other girls at school used to go whenever they needed help, just by city hall, next to a church, and a short drive from an H-E-B supermarket. It was easy to find. There was a mural on the outside of brightly painted women standing in a field, holding what looked like balls of light, gazing up at the sun. The words hovered above them: “dignity.” “empowerment.”

Few places were harder hit by Roe’s fall than the Rio Grande Valley, which lies south of San Antonio and abuts the state’s border with Mexico. Even before 2021, reproductive health care in the region had been difficult to come by — and abortion, while technically available, was only barely so in practice.

Continued: https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/052624_abortion_burdens/she-wanted-abortion-her-only-option-was-driving-mexico/

26.05.2024

self-managed abortion

Shefali Luthra

South Texans for Reproductive Justice

traveling to Mexico for abortion

Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in a Post-Roe America

Whole Woman’s Health

USA – Fearing Legal Threats, Doctors Are Performing C-Sections in Lieu of Abortions

Some physicians are doing unnecessary and invasive surgery on pregnant patients “to preserve the appearance of not doing an abortion.”

MARY TUMA
April 17, 2024

When news that Lizelle Gonzalez was suing the local prosecutor’s office for more than $1 million in damages, after being falsely imprisoned for murder over an attempted self-managed abortion in 2022, reproductive rights advocates cheered the move as a pathway to justice for the wrongfully charged southern Texas woman. However, a revelation in the lawsuit gave them pause: At the same hospital that reported her self-induced abortion to authorities, Gonzalez underwent a “classical C-section” for the delivery of her stillborn child, instead of abortion care. Major invasive surgery, Cesarean sections carry much higher risk for health complications, like hemorrhaging, compared with D&E abortion, and can jeopardize subsequent pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/c-sections-abortions-terrifying-new-reality/

18.04.2024

Commentary

Abortion on Our Own Terms

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Association of American Medical Colleges

Center for Reproductive Rights

Charlotte Lozier Institute

Dr. Daniel Grossman

Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi

Dr. Michele Heisler

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

forced C-sections

forced cesarean sections

Physicians for human Rights

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Reproductive Health Impact

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

‘The US is an outlier’: will Mexico’s abortion ruling drive Americans across the border?

As US state abortion bans spread, Mexico’s supreme court decision decriminalizing procedure could be lifeline for some

Carter Sherman
Fri 8 Sep 2023

A ruling from Mexico’s supreme court could turn the country into a popular destination for Americans trying to end their pregnancies as US state abortion bans proliferate.

On Wednesday, in a significant win for Mexican abortion rights supporters, the country’s supreme court ruled that criminalizing abortions is unconstitutional. However, the process of legalizing the procedure in the country is far from over. Although people will now be able to access abortions in federal health facilities in Mexico, the procedure remains illegal across much of the country.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/08/mexico-abortion-ruling-americans-border

08.09.2023

Commentary

abortion law reform

abortion pills from Mexico

In Texas, where abortion is already a crime, more roadblocks to access could be coming

Anti-abortion lawmakers eye new restrictions as court case on mifepristone access looms

Mia Sheldon, Ellen Mauro · CBC News
Posted: Feb 16, 2023

Look closely and a faint outline of the "Whole Women's Health" sign is all that remains of the only abortion clinic in McAllen, Texas. It was forced to close last summer. The building is now owned by a group of anti-abortion supporters — a literal symbol of the end of Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose in the state.

"I'm numb," said Cathy Torres from Frontera Fund, an organization that used to help 30 to 40 people a month travel within Texas or to nearby states to get abortions.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-abortion-access-1.5957451

Challenges increase for immigrants accessing abortion after Roe reversal

From language to travel barriers, immigrants are left with few options.

By Amanda Su
July 17, 2022

After Texas' Senate Bill 8, which banned any abortions after the detection of embryonic cardiac activity, was allowed to go into effect last year, Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a physician at Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston, said interstate travel was often the only recourse he could suggest for patients seeking to terminate their pregnancy.

But for one patient, that wasn't possible. Due to her pending immigration case, the patient could not travel more than 70 miles or would risk jeopardizing both her ability to remain in the country and the security of her two children, he said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/challenges-increase-immigrants-accessing-abortion-roe-reversal/story?id=86404717

18.07.2022

abortion for undocumented people

Bolaños Perea

Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights

Dr. Bhavik Kumar

Dr. Kristyn Brandi

immigrants and abortion

Nancy Cárdenas Peña

National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Planned Parenthood Center for Choice

Seri Lee

Mexican border town sees an increase in sales of abortion drugs to women from the U.S.

May 9, 2022
John Burnett, NPR

Since Texas passed a strict anti-abortion law in September, more and more women along the southern border have been going to unregulated pharmacies in Mexico to get abortion pills. Border health professionals fear the Mexican pharmacies have become a last resort for some women. Observers say it's a sign of what's to come if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.

The main street of Nuevo Progreso, Mexico — just across the sluggish Rio Grande from Weslaco, Texas — is a chaotic border bazaar that caters to American day-trippers looking for bargains and exotica. The street is packed with businesses that sell prescription eyeglasses, dental care, switchblades, tequila shots, statues of ghoulish drug saints and over-the-counter medicine.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097210654/mexican-border-town-sees-an-increase-in-sales-of-abortion-drugs-to-women-from-th

09.05.2022

Dr. Roberto Diaz-Gonzalez

mifepristone

misoprostol

misoprostol in Mexico

Nancy Cárdenas Peña

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

Nuevo Progreso abortion pills

Mexico

Health

Human Rights

Lizelle Herrera’s case highlights the misunderstood realities of abortion access, criminalization, and advocacy in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley

Cross-movement collaboration at the intersections of criminal and reproductive justice helped local organizers mobilize quickly

by Tina Vásquez
April 21st, 2022

On April 8, a small news outlet covering Texas’ Rio Grande Valley published a story that sent shockwaves through the reproductive justice movement. A woman named Lizelle Herrera was arrested April 7 by the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and charged with murder for allegedly having a self-induced abortion, which is when a person chooses to perform their own abortion outside of a medical setting. According to her indictment, Herrera “intentionally and knowingly” caused “the death of an individual.” She was held at the Starr County Jail, and her bond was set at $500,000.

In the days since Herrera’s story was made public, there has been a great deal of reporting about whether her criminalization was simply “a hasty error” by a district attorney or a case that should be treated as “a warning” that “foreshadows [a] post-Roe future.” But for reproductive justice advocates in Texas who are forced to navigate some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, Herrera’s case isn’t merely a sign of what’s to come; it’s a reality that low-income women of color overwhelmingly shoulder. It’s also the inevitable result of complicated, convoluted anti-abortion laws.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/04/21/realities-navigating-texas-anti-abortion-laws/

Woman faces Texas murder charge after self-induced abortion

Authorities say a 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder in Texas after causing “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”

By KEN MILLER and HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press
9 April 2022

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas -- A 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder in Texas after authorities said she caused “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” in a state that has the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S.

It’s unclear whether Lizelle Herrera is accused of having an abortion or whether she helped someone else get an abortion.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/woman-faces-texas-murder-charge-induced-abortion-83982115

Abortion on the border: The institutionalization of stigma and shame

Victoria Rossi/El Paso Matters and Veronica Martinez/La Verdad
Sep. 17, 2021

The heartbeat gave Ana nightmares for years. She stared at the sonogram of her fetus as a woman at El Paso’s Hill Top Women’s Reproductive Clinic, who wore scrubs but had not introduced herself, described the image on the TV screen before them.

Earlier, the woman had explained that Texas state law required this narration. If Ana wanted her abortion, the woman said, she was not allowed to look away.

Continued: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2021/09/17/texas-abortion-border-institutionalization-stigma-and-shame/5684120001/