Abortion bans are forcing some in the US to travel to Mexico for reproductive health care

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

These laws came into effect following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the law Roe v. Wade ended nearly fifty years of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.

Florida health officials reported more than 84,000 abortions statewide in 2023, including nearly 7,800 by out-of-state residents.

The Tampa Bay Times recently reported that about 2 in 5 abortions in Florida over the past six years occurred in the first six weeks of pregnancy, meaning about 60% of procedures performed in that time frame would be illegal under the new restrictions.

The new laws in Florida and other states are causing some Americans to cross the border into Mexico to access abortion, where the procedure was legalized in recent years.

Clinics in Mexico do not require proof of residency, so solid figures on who they treat are difficult to come by. But providers in Mexico report seeing more Americans.

In 2022, Luisa García, director of Profem, told an abortion clinic in the border city of Tijuana NPR that the percentage of patients from the United States increased from 25% to 50% in just two months after the Dobbs decision.

My research and teaching focus on gender and sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean. I often ask students to think about the differences between the United States and Latin America – and the struggles the two regions share.

Different paths

In recent years, both the US and Mexico have struggled over access to abortion care, with the two countries moving in opposite directions.

The year before, the U.S. Supreme Court returned RooMexico’s Supreme Court ruled that the northern state of Coahuila’s criminalization of abortion is unconstitutional. This decision set a precedent that led to decriminalization at the federal level in 2023.

Changes have been slow since then. Only 13 of Mexico’s 31 states have amended their criminal codes to reflect the court’s resolution, with Jalisco being the last state to do so in April 2024.

Unlike in the US, federal laws in Mexico do not automatically take precedence over local laws. But Mexican women living in states where abortion is illegal can still get one at a federally run hospital or clinic. And federal statute protects the staff of those facilities from punishment.

Marea Verde Movement

A crucial force behind the legalization of abortion care in Latin America is a movement called Green Tide, or Marea Verde, which emerged in Argentina and expanded across the region over the past two decades.

Although it started as a collective fight for abortion rights, Green Tide has grown to include issues such as preventing violence against women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as femicide – the violent deaths of women motivated by gender.

Expanding access to abortion in Mexico

Following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Mexican organizations that provide abortions expanded their locations to increase choice for Mexican and U.S. residents seeking care. For example, Fundación MSI opened its newest clinic in Cancún at the end of last year.

It deliberately chose this location, MSI’s regional director for Latin America told health news website Stat. Cancun’s status as a popular tourist destination means that several US airports offer direct flights for around US$400 round-trip. In-person abortion services range from $250 to $350. MSI’s website caters to Americans by offering information in English and contain links to search for flights.

To help those traveling to Mexico, Mexican and American abortion rights groups have created the Red Transfronteriza, a transnational network that supports people crossing the border in search of care, but whose main mission has become the shipping of misoprostol and mifepristone, the pills which are generally used to induce abortion. abortions, to the United States.

One group that is part of the network on the Mexican side of the border is the Guanajuato-based Las Libres, or The Free Ones. In September 2023, the founder estimated that her organization had sent abortion pills to approximately 20,000 women in the US since the Dobbs decision.

Red Necesito Abortar, or I Need to Abort Network, was founded in 2017 by Sandra Cardona and Vanessa Jimenez in the northern city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, to help people seeking abortion services.

History of abortion, US-Mexico border

Although the Dobbs This decision brought renewed attention to the issue; the relationship between the United States and Mexico and people from both countries seeking abortions has a long history.

Women’s studies professor Lina-María Murillo, who studies the US-Mexico borderlands and teaches a course on global reproduction, explains that abortion was legal in the United States before the Civil War and performed by midwives. In the following decades, declining birth rates and gender inequality led to restrictions across the country and a nationwide ban in 1910.

As Murillo’s research has shown, criminalization led women seeking abortions to travel to Mexico more than a century ago.

These border crossings eventually declined when Mexican abortion restrictions were imposed in the late 1960s and clinics were closed. At the same time, American activists and doctors contributed to the narrative that depicted Mexico as a dangerous place where “backyard” abortions were performed by “butcher” doctors. Murillo argues that these myths have contributed to a loosening of abortion restrictions in several US states, such as California and New Mexico, paving the way for Roe v. Wade.

As the US elections approach, abortion is likely to take center stage again – including in Florida, where a referendum to overturn the six-week ban will take place in November.