by Blake Mauro
Unregulated abortion pills are being sold over the border in Mexico and are expected to be smuggled back into the U.S. as an illegal alternative for American women looking for pregnancy termination services.
These abortion pills are readily available over the counter across the border at Mexican pharmacies, according to NPR. Nuevo Progreso is located less than half a mile from the U.S. border, making it easily accessible for Americans to buy medication in-store and for the medicine to be bought in bulk and smuggled back across the border.
The medications used to perform at-home abortions are mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone effectively obstructs the pregnancy-sustaining hormone progesterone and is available by prescription in Mexico. The latter, Misoprostol, can be purchased over the counter and is intended to treat ulcers but has proved effective in terminating pregnancy.
In September 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortions in the country, making pregnancy termination readily accessible.
Victor Olvera, a pharmacy manager at Uncle Sam Pharmacy in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico, told The Texas Tribune that he “expects that changes to abortion access in the U.S. will mean more business at Uncle Sam Pharmacy…the law is going to change and there will be more people coming.”
Texas, being a U.S.-Mexico border state, and one with the nation’s strictest abortion laws, is particularly subjected to unlawful abortion practices from across national borders.
The state passed a trigger law in 2021 that makes it a second-degree felony “for a person who knowingly performs, induces, or attempts an abortion.” The law prohibits abortion after six weeks and incentivizes citizens with rewards of at least $10,000 to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.
Twelve additional states have laws put in place meant to be “triggered” into effect by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade – Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.
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There are various pro-abortion activist groups in Mexico that are prepared to assist American women obtain illegal abortions now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
One group, Las Libres, or “the free ones,” is a Mexican feminist organization dedicated to promoting and defending the “Human Rights of Women.” The group promises “access to safe medical abortion through accompaniment networks among women.”
Verónica Cruz, one of the Las Libres founding members, along with other activists, are planning to help shuttle Texans and other Americans seeking abortions into Mexico, and to expand networks to ferry the abortion pills north of the border, according to The New York Times.
“We aren’t afraid…we are willing to face criminalization, because women’s lives matter more than their law,” Cruz told The NYT.
Another Mexican pro-abortion figure, Abril, often arranges exchange meetings with other activists at the U.S.-Mexico border to retrieve abortion pills disguised in vitamin bottles, according to Reuters. Abril, who currently resides in Texas then walks back across the border into the U.S., claims she has “nothing to declare” and hopes for the best.
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Blake Mauro is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Abortion Pills” by Robin Marty. CC BY 2.0.
