At a time when Texas prohibits abortion even in cases of rape, “Special Envoy” met these feminists in Mexico who are offering assistance to their American neighbors.
In Guanajuato, in the heart of Mexico, a “Special Envoy” team met one of the twelve “women of the year” honored by the American magazine Time Magazine. In this small conservative town, where abortion was punishable by prison two years ago, the mutual aid network that she founded is organized. For twenty years, Verónica Cruz defied the law of her country, helping thousands of women to have clandestine abortions. His fight helped lead Mexico to the decriminalization of abortion, confirmed by the country’s Supreme Court for all of its 32 states in September 2023.
Today, her feminist collective Las Libres (“Those who are free”) has become one of the main suppliers of abortion pills across the border, where it has already assisted more than 20,000 women: “We thought that in the United States, it was an acquired right, she remembers. And suddenly, we discover that the anti-abortionistst worked in the shadows for fifty years, and that they succeeded in making anullify this constitutional right !”
Since the historic about-face of the Supreme Court of the United States, returning in June 2022 on the Roe vs. Wade ruling guaranteeing the right to abortion since 1973, fifteen of the fifty American states have completely banned it. Others have limited this right (mentioned in this extract, the restrictive law passed in South Carolina was canceled, to everyone’s surprise, on January 5, 2023). Mexico went the opposite way and decriminalized it.
A highly organized abortion pill smuggling network
These Mexican women who had to help each other for decades to have clandestine abortions therefore decided to pass on their know-how to their American neighbors. They set up a network to smuggle abortion pills between the two countries, with all the logistics to ensure their delivery..
Over the counter in Mexico, these pills are purchased thanks to donations from American citizens (the association collected nearly 30,000 euros in one year). A first group of volunteers, with passports and visas, transports them to the United States, by plane or land. They are received by a second group, responsible for sending them directly to the women who have requested them. Finally, a final group accompanies and guides these women by encrypted messaging throughout the entire process, completely free.
Overloaded with requests, the Las Libres team tries to process them as quickly as possible, because it is a “help first need. Humanitarian aid.” Messages calling for help are pouring in, particularly from Texas, which prohibits abortion even in cases of rape.
Excerpt from “The smugglers of freedom”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on January 11, 2024.
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