Abortion: in Mexico, activists organize to help Americans

Verónica Cruz, who founded the organization Las Libres, remembers those years when Mexican women crossed the border to have abortions.

REUTERS - EDGARD GARRIDO

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

While the right to abortion is declining in the United States, it is gaining ground in Mexico.

Several states have legalized abortion after the decision of the Mexican Supreme Court in September 2021 to declare unconstitutional any sanction against women who would have recourse to an abortion.

The reverse decision of that taken on June 24 by the American Supreme Court.

Having heard of these advances, American women are now turning to Mexican organizations. 

Advertising

Read more

With our correspondent in Mexico,

Emmanuelle Steels

Mexican activists are mailing abortion pills to American women who want abortions and can no longer do so in their country, where restrictive laws have been passed in several states.

In Mexico this drug is over the counter and inexpensive.

► Also to listen: Mexico: what the decriminalization of abortion by the Supreme Court implies

At the head of a pro-abortion organization in northern Mexico, Sandra Cardona explains that she has been inundated with requests since the decision of the American Supreme Court.

Since June 24, we have been receiving between 70 and 80 requests a day from American women who need to terminate their pregnancies.

These networks of solidarity between Mexico and the United States are unheard of

 ,” she underlines.

We had always seen the United States as the model to follow 

Previously, Mexican women crossed the border to have abortions freely in the United States.

Verónica Cruz, who founded the organization Las Libres, remembers this.

"

In Mexico and throughout Latin America, we had always seen the United States as the model to follow,

" she says.

It was the country that guaranteed the right to abortion, their clinics were open to everyone… And fifty years later, it's a leap backwards.

 »

And a

leap forward in Mexico

when the ten judges of the Supreme Court unanimously decided to give precedence to the right of women to dispose of their bodies over any other consideration.

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_EN

  • Mexico

  • Company

  • Womens rights

  • Women

On the same subject

International reporting

Canadian abortion clinics prepare to welcome Americans

United States: the Supreme Court revokes the right to abortion

Decryption

Abortion in the United States: The Regression