Visit to Mexico

I spent the last week in Mexico City. The country of Mexico is now far ahead of the United States in terms of reproductive rights for women.

In addition to the fact that they now have a female president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who calls herself a feminist and has announced the creation of a Ministry of Women, the National Supreme Court beginning in 2021 has issued rulings that abortion can no longer be considered a crime and eliminated federal criminal penalties for abortion. Hence all federal health facilities in the country are obligated to provide abortion care. Like the United States, Mexico has states, 32 of them, and half have formally decriminalized abortion in their territory. We are working hard with our partner organizations in the remaining states.

The regulatory authority In Mexico, similar to the FDA, recently reduced restrictions for obtaining mifepristone in pharmacies and expanded the indications for misoprostol, two essential medications for self-managed abortions. They are available without prescription. On my visit, I went into three small neighborhood pharmacies in Mexico City asking for mifepristone, but none had it in stock but offered to order it. All had misoprostol in stock. I was assured by our partner organizations that Mifepristone is widely available in pharmacies throughout Mexico. Approximately 80% of abortions are done with medication. Our partners are working on access for the underserved and to de-stigmatize abortion in this deeply religious and patriarchal country.

Women from the US are coming to Mexico for abortion medication.

Health care in Mexico is fragmented, much like the US, and spotty. There is a proposal to move low-risk pregnancies out of hospitals to midwives. There is a very high rate of unnecessary Caesarians. Teen births are too high but declining.

The Mexican partners that we met with were: GIRE (Grupo de Información er Reproductión Elegida), Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD) and the Association of Professional Midwives.

We had long discussions on the vote of Mexican immigrants to the US. The general feeling from our Mexican colleagues was that Mexican immigrants, while religious, voted on the economy and on personal security. They looked askance on recent illegal immigrants from their home country, fearing for their jobs and personal safety. The Mexican immigrants have achieved a piece of the American Dream and don’t want competition. The Democratic message didn’t hit on Mexican immigrant needs. Trump seemed a leader who related to their issues and beliefs. He represented America more than Harris.

L to R: Maria Consuelo Mejía, Rebeca Ramos (Executive Director of GIRE, the Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida), ACS, Marta Lamas (a leading feminist academic, activist, and thought leader in Mexico), and Giselle Carino, CEO of Fos Feminista. Marta and María Consuelo helped found GIRE more than 30 years ago, and María Consuelo also founded CDD, Catholics for the Right to Decide, in 1994.