While the right to an abortion is no longer guaranteed in the US, it has now been decriminalised just across the border in Mexico. As a result, there are now Mexican women pledging to help give Americans access to illegal abortions. It’s a bit of a worldly juxtaposition: American women pleading with their Mexican counterparts for help.
This grotesque situation is the direct consequence of the annulment of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in June 2022 which gave American women the right to abortion. Since then, access to an abortion has been completely prohibited in 15 out of 50 states. In the meantime, Mexico has gone the other way in legalising the procedure in September 2023. In the past, militant Mexican feminists would help thousands of women have illegal abortions at home with tablets – a set of skills and experiences they have now decided to make use of in helping their American neighbours.