Americans seeking abortion get help from Mexico

Authored by channelnewsasia.com and submitted by Paneraiguy1
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MEXICO CITY: Facing high medical costs and pressure to reconsider, a single mother living in California turned to activists across the border in Mexico who helped her have an abortion.

"We're supposed to be in a free country, in a state where you can smoke marijuana, but abortion is still somewhat taboo," the 31-year-old said, shortly before the US Supreme Court ended the nationwide right to the procedure.

The woman, of Mexican descent, believes terminating a pregnancy will now become ever harder, although the liberal West Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington jointly vowed to defend abortion rights.

The Supreme Court's decision on Friday to overturn the nationwide right to abortion gives all 50 states the freedom to ban the procedure, and nearly half are expected to do so in some form.

Even before the ruling, accessing a safe abortion in the United States was already "complicated if you don't have money," said the mother of three, who works in a restaurant in San Diego.

She initially visited two clinics in the United States, but at both the cost of the procedure was almost US$1,000, which she could not afford.

At one of the facilities, which had religious links, she was discouraged from having an abortion.

"They told me there were other options, that I could give it up for adoption. But I was determined, desperate," she told AFP by telephone, explaining that she got pregnant because contraceptives failed.

DrPringlesJr on June 27th, 2022 at 05:23 UTC »

Reminds me when Peter Griffin's mom went to Mexico to abort him but he ended up being born there.

008Zulu on June 27th, 2022 at 05:22 UTC »

The Wall was not meant to keep Mexicans out, but American's in.

Paneraiguy1 on June 27th, 2022 at 03:50 UTC »

A famously catholic country is somehow more liberal about abortion than the US is. Let that sink in for a moment