The FDA-approved combination of the two drugs traveled inside Mexico the day before and was being processed by an underground network of about 30 organizations in the country.
Since the US Supreme Court abolished the Roe v. Wade case, the network has moved an average of 100 doses daily across borders, the organizers say.
“Medicines reach women in a thousand ways in a creative way,” said Veronica Cruz, a prominent Mexican abortion activist helping the group Las Libre run the network. Sanchez said.
Abortion, including the distribution of abortion in Texas, the most commonly used method of abortion in the country, was virtually banned following a June High Court ruling.
Last week, Whole Woman’s Health, Texas’s largest independent abortion provider and the operator of the last clinic in the state’s vast Rio Grande Valley border area, closed its center in the state and adjacent New Mexico. Announced plans to resume at. Mexico.
Traveling to other states for an abortion is an option, but it’s not easy. Women who have had an abortion treatment with drugs for several days are often told to stay in the process. Such trips are exorbitant for some.
As such, the bold and illicit activity of the Mexican network has emerged as several paths for women seeking abortion in southern Texas and beyond, leveraging an activist-led abortion access model that already exists in Mexico. doing.
Sandra Cardona, whose Necesito Abortar Mexico group is part of Mexico’s abortion network, said that the week after the Supreme Court’s ruling, her group alone received more than 70 requests for assistance from US women.
“What we did was start giving them choices,” she said.
“Accompaniment” model
Misoprostol and mifepristone, which have been approved for use in drug abortion, have long been a means of access to abortion for women living in parts of Mexico who have no access to the procedure.
Under the “a compañimiento” or ancillary model, community health workers are often associated with reproductive rights groups and assist women through drug abortion treatment with information and medical guidance, either virtually or directly, and in some cases. , We also provide what you need.
This model is common all over the world, especially in places where access to abortion is restricted.
In a set of guidelines released in March, the World Health Organization outlined best practices for the global use of accompaniment and other abortion service delivery networks, and self-managed abortion is a “medical system”. It must be perceived as potentially empowering and actively expanding. ” .. “
In Mexico, a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that abortion is unconstitutional allows women to legally transport tablets from one state to another for home. increase.
If a woman prefers to be treated under the supervision of a trained professional, Cardona of Necesito Abortar will welcome her into her home.
Earlier this year, Cardona converted the second floor of her property in a city in northern Monterrey into La Avorteria, a set of cozy decorated rooms where women in Mexico and the United States could receive abortion treatment. Did.
Two women in Texas suffered a drug abortion at the center last week, according to Cardona.
Strengthening US abortion rules
According to the reproductive rights organization Guttmacher Institute, access to abortion by Americans is expected to be restricted in at least 26 states as more planned state legislation will come into force in the coming weeks.
Many state laws do not seem to distinguish between drug therapy and surgical abortion, and laws already in some state books prohibit telemedicine on prescribing abortion drugs, and out-of-state delivery services. Is complicated.
If / When / How: LawyeringForReproductive Senior Advisor and Legal Responsibility, people who seek abortion-inducing medications, even when treatment is banned, generally face low levels of legal risk. Farah Diaz-Tello said. Justice is a US-based group that operates a legal hotline in addition to other services.
Although state bans have generally not been designed to prosecute abortion victims, Diaz-Tello has stated that “increased stigma and increased scrutiny” regarding abortion. “Can cause problems for people seeking medical care, for example.” After self-managed abortion.
In reality, the greater impact of the new law on drug abortion is the law of those who help block women’s access to women in banned states and facilitate childbirth outside the scope of the law. It is to increase the danger.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Biden administration has promised to defend and expand access to abortion as it suggests that anti-abortionists will promote more states to make pills harder to obtain. Did.
The National Right to Life Committee, the largest anti-abortion group in the United States, has also said that the state has helped women undergo illegal abortion, including “trafficking” drugs that induce abortion and self-directed instructions. He suggested that criminal punishment should be increased. -Managed abortion.
In Texas, a 2021 law has already banned the mailing of abortion medications, threatening prison time for anyone other than a doctor who provides pills.
“Women do not have to experience being at the limit of legality.”
Since spring, Ipas, a global reproductive rights organization, has analyzed cross-border accompaniment networks and their corresponding US and Mexican laws. Women in the United States have the right to travel to Mexico in the United States and Mexico to complete abortion care, and medical tourism is routine in many border areas, but it is illegal to bring foreign medicines into the United States. There may be.
Lawyers in this group have begun preparing Ipas to defend the actions of the country’s organizations in response to reports to Mexican police, consulting with a US-based nonprofit organization to make the drug safe and legal. He said he was finding a way to deliver it. there.
Maria Antonio Arcardo, Director of Central America and Mexico in Ipas, said: “But I think this also talks about women’s solidarity and commitment, and the feminist movement.”
Source: www.cnn.com
