(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Inside Mexican abortion activists’ secret network of ‘acompañantes’ [1] [] Date: 2024-02 Abortion solidarity In June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v Wade ruling, ending the federal right to abortion in the US and prompting several state legislatures to bring in more restrictive laws on pregnancy terminations. In response, at least 17 Mexican organisations operating along or near the Mexico-US border have widened their cross-border networks to provide care to US women in need of an abortion. Their work has come amid a rising presence of anti-abortion activists in Mexico’s border states. openDemocracy and La Verdad de Juárez recently revealed how groups such as Vifac operate centres that have been accused of spreading misinformation and coercing women and girls to continue with their pregnancies. Tokya Casimiro, an abortion companion from Hermosillo, told us that she and her colleagues are usually approached by women who don’t want their families to find out they are considering an abortion, no matter which side of the border they live on. The companion’s role is to offer information and support, not judgement, she said. “We try to emphasise that it’s not that we don’t care what their reasons are, but rather we believe that all reasons are valid,” Casimiro explained. Andrea Sánchez works as a companion for Aborto Seguro in the border state of Sonora. The group helps women access abortion pills, and Sánchez said she offers a wide range of support, from mental health to legal advice. “Part of our work is to discover the different contexts faced by women who need access to abortion. We can also identify if a woman is a victim of violence and suggest options to her, depending on the situation,” she said. Ensuring access to medical abortion was the reason Sandra Cardona founded the group Necesito Abortar in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo León, another border state, in 2016. She began using Facebook to educate people about abortion with pills. Since then, according to Cardona, the group has helped more than 20,000 people receive abortion support or information on sexual and reproductive rights, mainly in Mexico but also in other Latin American countries and the US. Based about 220 kilometres from the Texas border, Cardona and her partner Vanessa Jiménez have set up an abortería (‘abortion shop’) at their home in a residential neighbourhood of Monterrey. Abortion is severely restricted in Nuevo León, allowed only in cases of rape and life or health risks for the woman. Cardona and Jiménez welcome women who lack a safe place for taking abortion pills, and provide them with shelter and guidance. They don’t fear persecution, despite the state criminal code, because of the Mexican Supreme Court’s ruling in 2021 that it is unconstitutional to criminalise abortion. The two women used to deal mainly with Mexican clients or migrants on their way to the US, but this changed last year. “Typically, we gave information to women from the US once every one or two months, but from September 2022, more women started to call. Some of them arrived in our town asking for help,” Cardona said. “Right now, about five or six people [from the US] are coming here every week seeking an abortion.” Another abortion companion in the state of Chihuahua, which borders Texas, said that with one exception, all of her clients on the US side were Spanish speakers and many of them lived in border communities. Mariela Castro, who volunteers for abortion support group Marea Verde in that state, said US women interested in their cross-border network usually have working-class backgrounds and few resources. “We know they are the ones who are suffering from this situation. Seeking an abortion has a lot to do with not making their living situation even more complicated,” she said. Most women come from the bordering state of Texas, where it is illegal to perform an abortion, including by dispensing or mailing the abortion-inducing medications mifepristone and misoprostol, in most circumstances. Texas laws have narrow exceptions only to save the life or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function” of a pregnant patient. Dodging criminalisation and surveillance One of the greatest hurdles the cross-border network faces is how to transport abortion pills across the US border. For clients within Mexico, relaxed policies among local pharmacies make it straightforward to send medication by post or delivery apps. But getting medication to the US is challenging. Sometimes, companions have to find friends of the US client or others willing to cross the border and carry the misoprostol. In Texas, supplying abortion pills could result in a jail sentence. Most of the abortion providers we spoke to in Mexico seem unconcerned about being prosecuted by US authorities, though they worry about the security of the women they serve and their families. But Karina de la Cruz, an activist from Marea Verde Nogales on the Arizona border, says acompañantes in Nogales have confided in her that they are afraid of being criminalised simply for carrying abortion pills in the US . “The restrictions in the United States would put us or anyone willing to help us on the same level as drug traffickers, because we would be committing a crime taking the drug [misoprostol] there,” she said. Online data security is also crucial. Salma, a companion in Chihuahua (who asked us to use only her first name), said she and many colleagues had to change their communication protocols with clients. They stopped using Meta apps such as WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram after reports that Facebook was compelled to disclose information to state law enforcement concerning the case of an abortion for a teenager in Nebraska. The state authorities reviewed the girl’s private messages, which allegedly detailed how she had undergone a self-managed abortion. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/mexico-us-feminist-women-human-rights-abortion/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/