As abortion access expands, activists support reproductive rights

Tijuana (AP):

It’s Sunday night and Crystal P. Lira is not answering her messages. Inside the headquarters of Colectiva Bloodys y Projects, an organisation that has supported reproductive rights near the US-Mexico border since 2016, her only concern is for the woman she has provided with a safe space to get an abortion.

Lira, who lives in Tijuana in northern Mexico, is one among dozens of Mexican ‘acompañantes’ — volunteers who support women wanting to terminate a pregnancy. Located all over the country, most acompañantes offer virtual guidance through an abortion protocol in which no clinics or prescriptions are needed.

Developed by activists after decades of facing abortion bans and restrictions in most of Mexico’s 32 states, the protocol encourages women to trust self-managed medication abortions following guidelines established by the World Health Organization.

“Accompaniment means that we facilitate information, medications and everything a woman needs to get a safe abortion at home,” Lira said. “But we also provide emotional support and support to fight stigma, religious and cultural barriers.”

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 US counterpart went in the opposite direction.

The Mexican decision did not have the same immediate impact as Roe v. Wade, the 1973 US Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing women’s access to abortion 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.

CRIMINALISE ABORTION

For now, 20 Mexican states still criminalise abortion.

In Baja California, where Tijuana is located, abortion was decriminalised in 2021. By then, Lira had already gained five years’ experience as an acompañante.

“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, and because of her hometown’s proximity to the US border, Lira made an appointment at a Planned Parenthood clinic in San Diego. She travelled back home with pills and a debt of $600 that she paid for her abortion.

Three years later, deeply conflicted by the inequality in abortion access, she became an activist and received training to become an acompañante.

“The easiest part was learning the abortion protocol,” she said. “The toughest was acquiring a political perspective, understanding how abortions are based on rights and freedom.”

Many reject her views in Mexico, a predominantly Catholic country.

Soon after the court’s ruling in early September, former actor and right-wing activist Eduardo Verástegui announced he will seek the presidency on an anti-abortion platform. “Say ‘yes’ to life and ‘no’ to abortion,” he has said, echoed by his followers.

Without mentioning him by name, the Catholic archbishop of Mexico City, Carlos Aguiar Retes, recently advocated voting for Verástegui in the 2024 election, and some Catholic, evangelical and anti-abortion groups have publicly supported him as well.

“We think it’s good to have a character like him,” said Rodrigo Iván Cortés, director of the National Family Front, an anti-abortion group. “He’s explicit about defending life and family.”

Abortion activists were not surprised by the conservative response to the court’s ruling.

“Historically, every progressive movement is followed by a setback from groups that organise against it,” said Aguiar from GIRE. “We saw it in the United States.”

Aguiar and her colleagues plan to keep advocating for reproductive rights. “We will continue working on issues like obstetric violence, maternal death and forced contraception,” Aguiar said.