In September 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that abortion was no longer a crime – not even in places like Guanajuato, where it continues to be outlawed by the state.
MONTERREY, Mexico — Verónica Cruz Sánchez watched something remarkable happen from the office of her women’s rights organization in Guanajuato, the capital city of one of this country’s most conservative Catholic states.
“It was crazy,” Cruz Sánchez said. “For those of us working in abortion, the example to follow was the United States. All the countries in Latin America wanted a Roe … we wanted to have the constitutional right.” There, she stuffs manila envelopes to create at-home abortion kits for delivery. Each includes small bags containing a single mifepristone, four misoprostol pills, two ibuprofens and four sanitary napkins.
“We had to explain things. … What is misoprostol? What does it do? Can you detect it in the body? How does it function?” Jiménez said. “In the end, I believe, the purpose was not to solve the problem in the United States but rather to share the experience that we have so that there, in their own context, they can form the networks that exist here.’’
Since its birth last year, the cross-border network has earned significant news coverage in U.S. media outlets, and with it, more clients. Post-Roe, Las Libres has seen requests for abortion pills from the U.S. explode – from 10 a day to 300 in some instances, Cruz Sánchez said.