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Video length: 29 min
Correspondent. The smugglers of freedom
Correspondent. The smugglers of freedom – (SPECIAL ENVOYE / FRANCE 2)
While the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy is no longer guaranteed in the United States, Mexico has decriminalized it. Now, it is Mexican women who help American women to have clandestine abortions.
It’s a bit like the world turned upside down: American women begging Mexican women to help them. This grotesque situation is the direct consequence of the annulment by the Supreme Court of the United States, in June 2022, of the Roe v. Wade, who guaranteed the right to abortion for American women.
Since then, 15 out of 50 states have completely banned access to abortion. In the meantime, Mexico went the opposite way and decriminalized it in September 2023. Mexican feminist activists helped thousands of women to have clandestine abortions, at home, using pills. An experience and know-how that they have decided to pass on to their neighbors, American women.
In Texas, feminist collectives against anti-abortion activists
Mexican women have set up a solidarity network to smuggle abortion pills between the two countries. They receive around a hundred calls for help every day from the United States, and in particular from Texas, which has banned abortion even in cases of rape. In this ultra-conservative state, bordering Mexico, the fight between feminist collectives and anti-abortion activists rages.
The “Special Envoy” teams went to meet feminists in Mexico who are coming to the aid of their American neighbors. Reporters also met with Texas activists who are chasing women across the country trying to obtain the drugs needed for abortion.
A report by Ingrid Piponiot, Alex Gohari, Sophie Przychodny, Rémi Vorano and Raynald Lellouche broadcast in “Envoyéspecial” on January 11 2024.
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