More women in US seek help from Mexico for abortions

An increasing number of US women are traveling across the southern border to get an abortion in Mexico, according to abortion rights activists and clinics, a year after the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

The women from states such as Arizona, Louisiana and Texas, where abortions are either banned or not allowed after 15 weeks of pregnancy, go to clinics in Tijuana and Mexico City, The New York Times and The Associated Press said. There are no official numbers on how many women are doing so.

The Times quoted Andrea Sanchez, an abortion rights activist, as saying: "Before, the women from (the Mexican state of) Sonora would go to the United States to access abortions in clinics, and now the women from the United States come to Mexico."

The border crossings have gathered pace since Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion last month. Before that the procedure had been illegal for decades. In about 20 of Mexico's 32 states abortion is still illegal.

After the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe versus Wade ruling last year half of all states banned or restricted abortion.

More than 20 mainly Republican-run states ban abortion after 18 weeks of pregnancy. In 14 states it is completely banned, regardless of any extenuating circumstances such as rape or incest.

"Every abortion ends the life of a preborn child — a vulnerable member of the human family," Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, an organization in Washington, told China Daily. "The court was right to correct an egregious error made in 1973."

Clinics in Mexico are also reporting that US women are seeking medical abortion pills to be sent to them clandestinely by mail.

Sending pills

An underground network of activists said it has sent thousands of pills across the border to aid women in states where it is difficult to obtain them.

Veronica Cruz, an abortion rights activist in Mexico, said her organization Las Libres, which means the free ones, has helped about 20,000 women in 23 states to get access to abortion pills.

Last year the US Attorney General Merrick Garland said the federal Food and Drug Administration had approved the use of the drug Mifepristone for medicated abortions.

However, last month Republicans in the US House of Representatives introduced a bill aimed at banning the drug, which they say is dangerous, even though Mifepristone has been approved for 23 years for abortions until 10 weeks, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation in California.

Representative Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee, was joined by anti-abortion groups to promote the new bill at a launch that coincided with International Safe Abortion Day on Sept 28. The bill has 13 Republican co-sponsors.

"Banning these dangerous drugs for the purpose of chemical abortion is an important step in protecting life," Ogles said. "We have a duty to uphold the sanctity of life."