When its six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1, 2024, Florida joined nearly two dozen other US states which prohibit abortion or greatly limit it.
These laws came into force after the 2022 Supreme Court decision decision to postpone Roe v. Wade It ended almost 50 years of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.
Florida health officials in 2023 reported more than 84,000 abortions across the state, including nearly 7,800 by out-of-state residents.
tea Tampa Bay Times reported recently that about 2 in 5 abortions in Florida in the last six years have occurred in the first six weeks of pregnancy, which means that about 60% of the procedures performed during that time will be illegal under the new restrictions.
New laws in Florida and other states are sending some Americans across the border to Mexico to access an abortion, where the procedure has been legalized in recent years.
Clinics in Mexico do not require proof of residency, so solid numbers of who they treat are hard to come by. But providers in Mexico report seeing more Americans.
In 2022, Luisa Garcia, director of Profeman abortion clinic in the border city of Tijuana, said NPR that the percentage of patients coming from the United States jumped from 25% to 50% in just two months after the Dobbs decision.
My research and teaching focus Gender and sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean. I often ask students to think about the differences between the United States and Latin America – and the struggles that the two regions share.
Different roads
In recent years, the United States and Mexico have each struggled over access to abortion care, with the two countries moving in opposite directions.
The year before the US Supreme Court reversed Roe, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled the criminalization of abortion by the northern state of Coahuila unconstitutional. This decision set a precedent that led to decriminalization at the federal level in 2023.
Since then change has been slow. Only 13 of Mexico’s 31 states have amended their criminal codes to reflect the court’s ruling, with Jalisco being the last state to do so, in April 2024.
Unlike the United States, federal laws in Mexico not automatically they cancel the local ones. But Mexican women who live in states where abortions are illegal can still have one in a federally administered hospital or clinic. And the federal statute protect the staff of these facilities from punishment.
Green Sea Movement
A crucial force behind the legalization of abortion care in Latin America is a movement called Marea Verde, or Marea Verdewhich emerged in Argentina and spread throughout the region in the last two decades.
Although it began as a collective fight for abortion rights, Green Tide has grown to include issues such as the prevention of violence against women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, and as well feminicide – the violent ones death of women motivated by sex.
Expanding access to abortion in Mexico
Following the US Supreme Court’s decision in 2022, Mexican organizations that offer abortions have expanded locations to increase choices for Mexican and American residents seeking assistance. For example, the MSI Foundation opened its the newest clinic in Cancun at the end of last year.
Is it chose this place intentionallyMSI’s Latin American regional general manager told health the Stat news site. Cancun’s status as a popular tourist destination means that many American airports offer direct flights for approx US$400 round trip. In-person abortion services range from $250 to $350. The MSI website attract Americans by offering information in English and presenting links to search for flights.
To help those traveling to Mexico, Mexican and American abortion rights groups have created Red cross bordera transnational network that supports those who cross the border in search of care, but whose primary mission has become the transportation of misoprostol and mifepristone, the pills commonly used to induce abortion, into the United States.
One group that is part of the network on the Mexican side of the border is Las Libres, or The Free Ones, based in Guanajuato. In September 2023, its founder estimated that his organization had sent abortion pills to about 20,000 women in the United States since the Dobbs decision.
Red I need to aborto I Need to Abort Network, was founded in 2017 by Sandra Cardona and Vanessa Jimenez in the northern city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, to help those seeking abortion services.
History of abortion, the US-Mexico border
Although the Dobbs decision brought new attention to the problem, the relationship between the United States and Mexico and people from both countries who seek abortion has a long history.
Women’s studies professors Lina-Maria Murillo, who studies the US-Mexico border and teaches a course on global reproduction, explains that abortion in the US was legal and performed by midwives before the Civil War. In the following decades, declining birth rates and gender inequality led to nationwide restrictions and a national ban in 1910.
As Murillo’s research has documented, criminalization drove women seeking abortions to travel to Mexico more than a century ago.
These border crossings eventually decreased as Mexican abortion restrictions were enforced and clinics closed in the late 1960s. At the same time, American activists and doctors contributed to the narrative which portrays Mexico as a dangerous place where “back alley” abortions were performed by “butcher” doctors. Murillo argues that these myths have contributed to a loosening of abortion restrictions in several US states such as California and New Mexico, helping to set the stage. Roe v. Wade.
As the election draws closer in the United States, abortion will likely take center stage again – even in Florida, where a referendum to overturn the six-week ban will be on the November ballot.
