As Mexico expands abortion access, activists support reproductive rights at the U.S. border. Mexico’s Supreme Court recently ruled that national laws prohibiting abortions are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights. The ruling, which extended Latin American’s trend of widening abortion access, happened a year after the court’s U.S. counterpart went in the opposite direction.
The Mexican decision did not have the same immediate impact as Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing women’s abortion access on a nationwide basis.
Although the Mexican ruling orders the removal of abortion from the federal penal code and requires federal health institutions to offer the procedure to anyone who requests it, further state-by-state legal work will be needed to remove all penalties.
“The court did not give a direct instruction to any local congress, but it sends a very clear signal of what congresses have to do,” said Sofia Aguiar, a lawyer at the Information Group for Chosen Reproduction, known by its Spanish initials GIRE.
For now, 20 Mexican states still criminalize abortion.
In Baja California, where Tijuana is located, abortion was decriminalized in 2021. By then, Lira had already gained five years’ experience as a companion.
“Ahead of starting an abortion network, I questioned myself: How did I get to this point? Why did I live what I lived, and what could have been different?” she said.
In 2012, Lira faced an unwanted pregnancy. “I didn’t know what to do, where to look for help,” she said.
On the recommendation of a friend of ella, and due to her hometown of ella’s proximity to the U.S. border, Lira made an appointment at a Planned Parenthood clinic in San Diego. She traveled back home with pills and a debt of $600 that she paid for her abortion.
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