Mexico – The Radical Future of Self-Managed Abortion Is Already Here

The Radical Future of Self-Managed Abortion Is Already Here
“I remember one woman who arrived and asked, ‘Is this the clinic?’ And we were like, ‘What clinic?’”

By Amy Littlefield and Laura Gottesdiener
March 4, 2020

Lizy and the woman who helped her to end her pregnancy met at a Starbucks in León, the largest city in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. Then a 20-year-old social-work student with curly hair and a heart-shaped face, Lizy, which is a nickname we’ve used to help protect her identity, felt nervous about discussing her pregnancy in such a public place. She was afraid she could be jailed for even considering an abortion, which is a crime in most cases in the heavily Catholic and conservative state. Enrolled in an exchange program in a city where she knew few people, she had no way to make the hours-long trip to Mexico City, the only place where abortion was legal at the time. She and her partner felt hopeless. “We were dying from fear, really, we were two frightened children,” she said later, seated in a park in her home city of Guadalajara. Finally, she had confided in a professor who told her about Rosalía.

Continued; https://newrepublic.com/article/156667/radical-future-self-managed-abortion-already

Mexico moves toward legal abortion, but women still face jail

Mexico moves toward legal abortion, but women still face jail

30 Nov 2019

GUANAJUATO, Mexico: Martha Mendez and Susana Duenas were both teenagers when they committed their "crime": suffering a miscarriage.

Accused of having an abortion - which is illegal in all but two states in Mexico - Mendez was forced to ask her fetus for forgiveness. Duenas was jailed for seven years.

Continued; https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/mexico-moves-toward-legal-abortion--but-women-still-face-jail-12140018

“Green Tide” Reaches Mexico as Oaxaca Decriminalizes Abortion

“Green Tide” Reaches Mexico as Oaxaca Decriminalizes Abortion
Oaxaca's monumental decision last week to decriminalize abortion is part of a larger "Green Tide" movement across Latin America.

October 3, 2019
Cecilia Nowell

The chambers of the state legislature in Oaxaca, Mexico, exploded with shouts of joy and rage September 25 as the region voted to decriminalize first-trimester abortions in a 24-10 vote. In the gallery, Catholic protesters chanted, “Assassins! Assassins!” while awaiting the vote. But when the decision was announced, feminist activists, clad in the green bandanas that have become the symbol of the Latin American pro-abortion movement, broke out in shouts of “Latin America will be entirely feminist.”

The vote exemplified the division between Mexicos deep Catholic, traditionally anti-abortion roots and its growing feminist movements. This tension was on full display in the chambers. Feminist activist Patricia Matus was one of the women celebrating in the legislature when the vote was announced. “The environment was horrible,” she said, describing pro-life demonstrators holding mass outside the state building, a verbal argument between male and female representatives that nearly delayed the vote, and shouting in the gallery.

Continued: https://nacla.org/news/2019/10/03/oaxaca-abortion-decriminalization-green-tide

Mexico Supreme Court receives case on abortion re-education program

Published September 07, 2016 Associated Press

MEXICO CITY – When Patricia Mendez miscarried in March 2015, she says police and detectives were called into the hospital ward to watch as she writhed in pain and expelled the dead, 20-week fetus.

"I was naked, with just the robe they give you, and I had all of them around as I miscarried," the 21-year-old recalled. "I was in a lot of pain, but nobody did anything. They just said, 'Confess, you have committed the worst sin in the world.'"

[continued at link]
Source: Associated Press

07.09.2016