Abortion in Coahuila, Mexico has been decriminalized

September 13, 2021 9:10 AM

SCJN: aplica en todo el país despenalización del aborto. Abortion Is No Longer a Crime in Mexico. (NYT)

Both these links came from my inbox, where I received this from a Latin America News Dispatch newsletter:

MEXICO: Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that criminal penalties for people who receive abortions violate the country’s constitution. The ruling opens the way for people facing prosecution across the country for receiving abortions to have the charges dropped. Almost all Mexican states have laws on the books that mandate jail time for people who receive abortions. The only states that do not are Hidalgo, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Mexico City.

The court ruling only invalidated a law criminalizing abortion in the border state of Coahuila. But it also means that abortion bans in 27 other states can also be invalidated if they are challenged.

Hot on the tails of the Texas thing, I thought y'all might like something encouraging.

posted by aniola (17 comments total)

Predicting now what is going to happen -

* Mexico will become a medical-tourism destination for Texas women seeking an abortion. Some of these women will no doubt be rich enough to fly to Mexico, but some will not, and will try cheaper ways to cross the border - bus, car, etc.

* The really desperate women will try to make the border crossing on foot. These women will most likely be....let's say non-Caucasian.

* Border patrol will then get all confused by the uptick in women that they catch in sweeps of the border because "wait....you're trying to get INTO Mexico?" Or....they will unwittingly "deport" these women back to Mexico, which is precisely where they wanted to be in the first place, and find themselves slapped with that $10-grand fine for "aiding a woman in getting an abortion."

* The courts in Texas are hopelessly snarled as everyone tries to hash out what the hell is going on.

....There will also be women who die during the border crossing, just as there are people who die trying to cross the border the other way.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:43 AM on September 13, 2021 [10 favorites]

Yeah, this happened last week. There’s already an informal circle of expats down I here in my (medical tourism destination) city organizing to host visitors, but a much better solution would be to fund high quality clinics in the border towns.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:47 AM on September 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

Criminalizing abortion, something the human body just does on its own like all mammals, is tantamount to criminalizing having being born with the wrong parts. Every time it gets taken down somewhere I just think, well, fuck, I guess this is what passes for good.
posted by bleep at 10:06 AM on September 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Mod note: One comment removed. If you want to talk about migrant people, do not use the phrase "illegal aliens".
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:08 AM on September 13, 2021 [14 favorites]

If a border officer lets a woman cross into Mexico to get this done, have they broken the law in Texas?
posted by njohnson23 at 10:18 AM on September 13, 2021

Border patrol...find themselves slapped with that $10-grand fine for "aiding a woman in getting an abortion."

If a border officer lets a woman cross into Mexico to get this done, have they broken the law in Texas?

Don't be ridiculous. "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect..."
posted by agentofselection at 10:26 AM on September 13, 2021 [5 favorites]

Some of these women will no doubt be rich enough to fly to Mexico...

Imagines an abortion bounty hunter suing Southwest Airlines...
posted by Thorzdad at 10:32 AM on September 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

And the entire flight crew individually plus the baggage handlers, TSA screeners and the people who fuelled the plane.
posted by Mitheral at 10:45 AM on September 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

(As funny as the idea is of suing border patrols and airlines, for what it's worth it is not a violation of the law for someone to help a person get an abortion outside of Texas. The bounty only applies to someone who helps a person get an abortion from a provider who is prohibited to perform abortions under the new law--that is, a doctor licensed and practicing in Texas. Texas does not have jurisdiction over the world.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:47 AM on September 13, 2021 [9 favorites]

Sorry to be That Guy on this again but if we could please remember that not only women have or need abortions that would be great, thank you!
posted by an octopus IRL at 11:09 AM on September 13, 2021 [8 favorites]

It's worth remembering that although abortion was formally illegal in Mexico since the early part of the 1900s, there were many decades in the pre-Roe v Wade era where people in the US would cross into Mexico for access to safe abortion services. This Washington Post article by Lina-Maria Murillo has a detailed history of the transnational organizing that facilitated this, including how starting in the 1970s it reversed, with Mexican women crossing to the US for accessible reproductive health services.

And so, by the 1940s, abortion providers began appearing along Mexico’s northern border in cities such as Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana, largely to serve U.S. residents in search of abortion care. They weren’t legal, but police, judges and attorneys in Mexico took kickbacks and turned a blind eye to the emerging business.

By the 1960s, with assistance from various organizations, including the Society for Human Abortions (SHA) in San Francisco and the Clergy Consultation Service (CCS) headquartered in New York, women from all over the United States received information about reliable abortion providers in Mexico. Some women drove hundreds of miles, while others took “abortion flights” — leaving Friday afternoon and returning Sunday morning — to the El Paso airport and crossed the border by foot or taxi to El Paso’s sister city Ciudad Juárez for the procedure.

posted by Dip Flash at 12:49 PM on September 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

@Billiken: I believe they are referring to transmasculine people or, generally, cases where having a uterus does not strictly imply woman by means of sex. (Ugh, I'm really struggling on how to phrase this. They may also mean what you thought in the sense that this is not my conversation either)
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 12:51 PM on September 13, 2021

El Paso’s sister city Ciudad Juárez

In Chihuahua, not Coahuila, alas, so probably still a few months out to become a quick-abortion destination. Laredo could get folks driving down from San Antonio tomorrow if they want, though.
posted by jackbishop at 2:29 PM on September 13, 2021

Cabortion San Lucas
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:49 PM on September 13, 2021

Medical tourism is for people of means, and I don’t understand why such people wouldn’t just fly to California. The barriers imposed on poor people are so much higher than the simple cost of transportation. They’re things like not being able to miss a day of work, not having any childcare options, not being able to take advantage of information resources, etc, etc. The Texas abortion law is especially a law that limits abortion access to poor people.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:13 PM on September 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

San Diego, California is about 1,500 miles from Brownsville, TX. Matamoros, TX is just the other side of border. For example.
posted by aniola at 8:11 PM on September 13, 2021

Viva! Now onward to the norteño!
posted by eustatic at 11:39 PM on September 13, 2021