U.S. Abortion Curbs Force Women to Travel to Mexico Diana Baptista - Thomson Reuters Foundation
go to original June 25, 2022

Americans Traveling to Mexico for Abortion Access (MSNBC)

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Mexican abortion rights activists had been bolstering their underground networks to support women from conservative U.S. states that have tightened abortion laws.

Every week since February, Cardona said their group, called Necesito Abortar (I Need An Abortion in Spanish), provided pills for about 10 women unable to travel to an abortion clinic or secure abortion pills in the United States.

Despite strict restrictions on abortion in most of Mexico, women cannot be prosecuted for ending a pregnancy and the abortion pill misoprostol can be bought from pharmacists without a prescription for 600 pesos ($30).

Mexico’s Top Court Decriminalized Abortion in 2021 (Reuters)

It is supplied without charge by Necesito Abortar, which was set up five years ago to help local and migrant women in Monterrey, an industrial hub in the border state of Nuevo Leon where abortion is only allowed in cases of rape or if the mother's health is in danger.

Occasionally, the group received calls for help from women who lived across the border and found it cheaper and easier to make a two-hour bus trip to Mexico to have an abortion.

But as abortion restrictions were tightened in numerous U.S. states from Texas to Alabama over the past year, inquiries from women in the United States started pouring into the group's Twitter, Facebook and TikTok inboxes.

To meet the growing demand, Cardona and Jimenez turned their office into a small apartment with a desk, a kitchen and a bathroom. There is Wi-Fi and a comfortable place for women to rest while they take the pill.

"We lend them our house. If they need to eat, we feed them what we cook for ourselves. All that is ours is also theirs," Cardona said.

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  Learn about I Need to Abort Network