Realizing Abortion Rights at the Margins of Legality in Mexico

Abstract

I analyze the alternative tactics and logics of Las Fuertes, a feminist organization that has taken an "alegal" approach to realizing the human right to abortion in the conservative Mexican state of Guanajuato. Since a series of United Nations agreements throughout the 1990s enshrined reproductive rights as universal human rights, Mexican feminists have adopted the human rights platform as a lobbying tool to pressure the government to reform restrictive abortion laws. This strategy bore fruit in Mexico City, with passage of the historic 2007 abortion legalization. Las Fuertes has leveraged the human rights strategy differently - to justify the direct provision of local abortion accompaniment in a context of near-total abortion criminalization. By directly seizing abortion rights, rather than seeking to implement them through legalistic channels, Las Fuertes has effectively challenged Mexican reproductive governance in an adversarial political environment.

Understandings of self-managed abortion as health inequity, harm reduction and social change

“…17,18 Abortion accompaniment networks also provide instruction and guidance through face-toface communication and support, with volunteers accompanying people to buy medicines, use medicines and be with them throughout the abortion process depending on their needs and preferences. 19,20 Self-management allows health professionals to distance themselves legally from SMA in restricted contexts. Feminist groups, by contrast, use hotlines and accompaniment networks to connect to people in the moment of their greatest need, providing step-by-step instruction on effective regimens, counselling on how to manage the experience of medical abortion, and clear guidelines for aftercare in an effort to build confidence, preparedness and a sense of control.…”

“…Socorristas en Red in Argentina, and Las Fuertes in Guanajuato, Mexico, for example, use the term "accompaniment" rather than "provision" to emphasise the supporting rather than supervisory role of service provision in SMA rooted in the belief that people have a fundamental right to make decisions about their own bodies and to act on those decisions. 19,20 SMA is subversive precisely because it challenges assumptions about service delivery requirements, definitions of who/ what is a provider of care and the power dynamics of care. For some, these care arrangements support the individualism of late-modern democracies that reinforce unsafe abortion as an individual responsibility and burden, alleviating the state of responsibility for its harms, and so exacerbating rather than remedying social inequities.…”

Abortion rights beyond the medico-legal paradigm

“…Activists inform people how to buy and use abortion pills, counsel and support people before, during and after their abortions, and deliver pills by post and through community networks . Some activists also refuse the terms, 'abortion provision or provider' as coming from the medico-legal paradigm, emphasizing rather their supportive or accompanying role with people at the centre of SMA and its practice (Singer, 2019;Zurbriggen et al, 2018).…”

“…Feminist practices for supporting and advancing self-managed abortion (SMA), the self-sourcing of abortion pills and their use outside of a clinical contextor aborto autónomo (autonomous abortion) as it is known in Latin America and the Caribbean, vary from context to context. There are hotlines (Drovetta, 2015;Gerdts & Hudaya, 2016), accompaniment in person (Singer, 2019;Zurbriggen et al, 2018), via e-mail, phone apps or websites (Yanow et al, 2019), referral to pharmacies or other trusted drug providers (Walsh, 2020), and the list continues to grow as SMA activism evolves according to people's actual needs and capacities, as well as social and material conditions.…”

Pendampingan Upaya Perbaikan Gizi pada Balita (Studi Kasus di Posyandu Sedap Malam, Dusun Sumbertimo, Desa Arjosari, Kalipare, Malang)

“…Pada beberapa substansi pendampingan yang sensitif, misalnya aborsi dan pelacuran, diperlukan raport yang benar-benar sangat baik. Ikatan yang terbangun antara pendamping dan sasaran sudah harus benar-benar bukan "orang lain" lagi (Singer, 2019) (Ladd & Neufeld Weaver, 2018). Substansi masalah status gizi buruk atau Pada beberapa substansi pendampingan yang sensitif, misalnya aborsi dan pelacuran, diperlukan raport yang benar-benar sangat baik.…”