Mexico is emerging as a destination for Americans looking for reproductive health services — not for the primary time

When the six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1, 2024, Florida joined almost two dozen other US states ban or severely restrict abortion.

These laws got here into force after the Supreme Court's 2022 order Decision to overthrow Roe v. Wade ended nearly 50 years of the constitutional right to abortion within the United States.

Florida health officials reported in 2023 greater than 84,000 Abortions statewide, including nearly 7,800 by people residing out of state.

The The Tampa Bay Times reported this recently that about two in five abortions in Florida over the past six years occurred in the primary six weeks of pregnancy, meaning about 60% of procedures performed during that period can be illegal under the brand new restrictions.

The latest laws in Florida and other states are sending some Americans across the border to get an abortion in Mexico, where the procedure has been legalized lately.

Clinics in Mexico don’t require proof of residency, so it’s difficult to get reliable figures on who they treat. But providers in Mexico report they’re seeing more Americans.

In 2022, Luisa García, Director of Profeman abortion clinic within the border city of Tijuana, told NPR that percentage The proportion of patients from the United States increased from 25% to 50% in only two months after the Dobbs decision.

My research and teaching focuses are Gender and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean. I often ask students to think in regards to the differences between the United States and Latin America—and the struggles that divide the 2 regions.

Different ways

In recent years, each the United States and Mexico have struggled over access to abortion care, with the 2 countries moving in opposite directions.

The yr before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that the northern state of Coahuila's criminalization of abortion was unconstitutional. This decision set a precedent that led to this Decriminalization on the federal level in 2023.

Since then, change has been slow. Only 13 of Mexico's 31 states have modified their criminal laws to reflect the court's order Jalisco This is the last state to achieve this in April 2024.

Unlike the United States, federal laws apply in Mexico not mechanically overrule local ones. But Mexican women who live in states where abortions are illegal can still have them Federal hospital or clinic. And that Federal law protects the staff of those institutions from punishment.

Green Sea Movement

A key force behind the legalization of abortion care in Latin America is a movement called Green tide or the green seawhich originated in Argentina and spread throughout the region over the past twenty years.

Although it began as a collective fight for abortion rights, Green Tide has now encompassed issues akin to the prevention of violence against women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, in addition to femicide – violent people Gender-related deaths of girls.

Expanding access to abortion in Mexico

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in 2022, Mexican organizations that provide abortions have expanded their locations to expand selections for Mexican and U.S. residents looking for medical care. For example, Fundación MSI opened theirs newest clinic in Cancún At the tip of last yr.

It I selected this place consciouslyMSI's regional managing director for Latin America told Health News website Stat. Cancún's status as a well-liked tourist destination signifies that several US airports have direct flights for roughly Round trip $400. In-person abortion services cost between $250 and $350. MSI website targets Americans by offering information in English and providing links to go looking for flights.

To help those traveling to Mexico, Mexican and American abortion rights groups founded the Red border crossinga transnational network that supports those crossing the border searching for medical care, but whose primary mission is to ship misoprostol and mifepristone, the pills commonly used to induce abortions, to the United States.

One group that is an element of the network on the Mexican side of the border is Las Libres, or The Free Ones, from Guanajuato. In September 2023, the founder estimated that their organization had done so sent abortion pills to about 20,000 women within the USA because the Dobbs decision.

I actually have to cancel the networkor I Need to Abort Network, was founded in 2017 by Sandra Cardona and Vanessa Jimenez within the northern city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, to assist those looking for abortion services.

History of Abortion, US-Mexico Border

Although the Dobbs decision brought renewed attention to the difficulty, the connection between the United States and Mexico and other people from each countries looking for abortions has a protracted history.

Women's Studies Professor Lina-María Murillo, who studies the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and teaches a course on global reproduction, explains that abortion was legal within the United States before the Civil War and was performed by midwives. In the next a long time, declining birth rates and gender inequality led to restrictions across the country and a nationwide ban in 1910.

As Murillo's research shows, criminalization greater than a century ago led women looking for abortions to travel to Mexico.

These border crossings ultimately declined when Mexican abortion restrictions were enforced and clinics closed within the late Sixties. At the identical time, US activists and doctors contributed to the narrative that shown Mexico as a dangerous place where “backyard” abortions were performed by “butcher” doctors. Murillo argues that these myths contributed to the loosening of abortion restrictions in several US states akin to California and New Mexico, laying the muse for Roe v. Wade would have laid.

As the United States election approaches, abortion is more likely to take center stage again – even in Florida, where a referendum to repeal the six-week ban can be held in November.