Three SAAF grantee partners, Las Libres, Fondo Maria, and Di Ramona are quoted in this article about abortion collectives in Mexico. Despite lifting legal restrictions to abortion the state is still failing to ensure provision of services, and these groups are helping to fill the gap in abortion care.
“We used to have the fantasy that once abortion was legal, we were not going to be necessary,” said Verónica Cruz Sánchez, a pioneering abortion rights activist in Mexico. That fantasy has faded…
Cruz Sánchez (Director of Las Libres) remembers that feminists would scold her for talking too openly about abortion. But she wouldn’t listen, and she kept training more women. While some organizations recommended that acompañantes never provide their real names or numbers while working, she did not heed their caution. “She said, ‘let’s stop this nonsense. Why won’t you share your name? If we don’t think this is a crime, why are we acting like it is?.”
In Hidalgo, where first-trimester abortion was legalized in 2021, the DiRamona collective created an abortion hotline through which organizers refer people to local public hospitals and keep an eye on the outcomes…86 percent of the abortions performed in Hidalgo public hospitals this year were referred by them.