Contraceptives: Mexico’s new contraband

For 20 years Verónica Cruz Sánchez, founder of the feminist human rights group Las Libres in Guanajuato, Mexico, was a tireless advocate for women seeking abortions in a country with staggeringly high rates of rape and domestic violence. 

During that time, her non-profit organization distributed hundreds of thousands of ‘abortion pills’ to women in need.

But when Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 2021 on the grounds that abortion bans violated the rights of women, it may have seemed that her organization’s work was concluded. 

Then the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade and Las Libres’ mission was suddenly turned on its head.

In recent weeks, the organization has experienced an avalanche of calls from U.S. jurisdictions in which abortion restrictions are already taking effect.

Previously scheduled abortions are being summarily cancelled, leaving the victims with too little time to sift through too few alternatives.

Las Libres packages the pills in orders of 3-5 each, depending upon availability.  They are batched and transported to the U.S.-Mexican border, where an army of volunteers carries them into the U.S. and assures that each is delivered to its final destination within days of order.

Mexican clinics are already anticipating an influx flood of U.S. women seeking abortions, evoking images of abortion clinics dotting the Mexican side of the border like casinos on Native American reservations.

And contraceptives are now a regular part of the mix of drugs making its way north. In an ironic reversal of stereotypes, Mexican Catholics have proven themselves far more tolerant and respectful of human rights than Evangelical Americans.

SCOTUS aborts

The reversal of Roe v. Wade is not only striking in its repudiation of American public opinion….

…but is an outlier in a world that is increasingly embracing woman’s right to choice.

Legalization of that right has been adopted by nations of widely varying political and religious traditions: Predominantly Catholic nations in Europe and Latin America… the Scandinavian social democracies… much of Southeast and Pacific Rim Asia.

The republics of the former Soviet Union – followed 10 years later by Cuba – were actually the first to legally recognize woman’s right to choice.

Abortion has been legal in neighboring Canada since 1988, but long-standing holdout Mexico – fueled by resistance of its Catholic hierarchy – has recently surprised many. Abortion rights were first expanded in Mexico City in 2007, but the issue remained contested in many states until a 2021 decision by Mexico’s Supreme Court lifted legal barriers to abortion rights nationwide.

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