David Remnick: This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Jia Tolentino: I'm Jia Tolentino. While abortion rights in the US are being challenged at every turn, in Mexico, their Supreme court finally decriminalized abortion just this year. Before that abortion was illegal in much of the country.

David Remnick: Stephania Taladrid covered that story in Mexico for The New Yorker. Now she's thinking about what this might mean for the state of Texas. Here's Stephania.

Stephania Taladrid: Abortion is a deeply polarizing issue in Mexico. You need to remember that this is the world's second-largest Roman Catholic country. Even though the Supreme court had issued a series of remarkably liberal rulings in recent years, the unanimous character of this ruling, which is a big surprise to even the feminist groups who had been fighting for this for decades. There was even an earthquake that evening. It was a magnitude seven earthquake, and a lot of people took it to be a symbol of what the ruling implied for the country

Speaker 4: [foreign language]

Speaker 5: [foreign language]

Stephania Taladrid: The case that was under consideration by the court in Mexico originated in the state of Coahuila. Just a couple of years ago, a law there passed, which said that women could face up to three years in prison for getting an abortion and a steep, steep fine. Now authorities, there have said that they'll abide by the court's ruling and also release every single person imprisoned for abortion-related crimes. Dee Redwine represents planned parenthood in Latin America.

Dee Redwine: The Supreme court's ruling does not instantly make abortion legal everywhere in Mexico, but it does compel the individual states to comply with the ruling as they consider their abortion laws. I really appreciate the directness of one of the Supreme court judges who recently wrote about the decisions. He said that it's not enough to recognize a human right if the effective conditions to enable the exercise of that right are not guaranteed.

Stephania Taladrid: An interesting comparison is actually same-sex marriage, which was legalized in 2015. To this date, eight federal entities have yet to comply with the court's decision. But what's most important here is that in a matter of weeks, things on both sides of the US-Mexico border completely flipped and Mexican groups who had hardly had any time to celebrate the court's decision, found themselves thinking, how can we help women in Texas access abortion?

Veronica Cruz Sanchez: [foreign language]

Stephania Taladrid: I recently listened in on a meeting of Mexican abortion groups talking about the new situation. One of the key organizers is Veronica Cruz Sanchez of the group Las Libres which means the free ones.

Veronica Cruz Sanchez: [foreign language]

Stephania Taladrid: For decades, Las Libres and other groups in Mexico have been facilitating medical abortions using drugs, even when the practice was illegal in the country. Those drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol require a doctor's prescription in the US but because they're taken for different medical conditions, in Mexico, you could just buy them over the counter. What Las Libres did was build a confidential network to give women information about when to take the medication, what dose to take, and to accompany every single one of them in case of complications. They see themselves as purely a support network for pregnant women. Now that abortion is legal in Mexico, they want to bring that practice to women in Texas, where it's essentially been bent. Could you give us an example of a woman from Texas who has been in the situation recently and has gotten in touch with you?

Veronica Cruz Sanchez: Two examples, in terms of medication distribution, we went ahead and directly gave the drugs to a woman we are supporting in her decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. The second, a woman crossed the border to perform the procedure in a border town in Mexico.

Stephania Taladrid: Let's start with the woman who requested abortion medications from you. How did that connection was established and how was she able to find you?

Veronica Cruz Sanchez: The first person contacted our network in a Mexican border city. Our information is public and on Twitter, Facebook, et cetera. We provided her with virtual support so she had all the information she needed. Then we gave the medications to a person who crosses the border daily. The woman gave us her address and we delivered the medication into her hands. Then all the support was virtual.

Stephania Taladrid: Essentially someone from Las Libres was able to follow up with her remotely and check in with her and be alert for any complications from Mexico.

Veronica Cruz Sanchez: In the other case a woman got in touch with a different network and was given the option of whether she wanted the medications or if she wanted to come to Mexico. She decided to come here because she was already close by. She got the support and the medication and terminated the pregnancy in Mexico.

Stephania Taladrid: How long did the woman you mentioned remain in Mexico?

Veronica Cruz Sanchez: Just one day.

Stephania Taladrid: I recently spoke to a woman in Mexico who had carried abortion drugs across the border herself to a woman in San Antonio. She worked with a group called Bloody Tijuana.

Speaker 7: In this case, it had happened through WhatsApp. We crossed the border with the medication usually is by foot. Even right now with the pandemia the COVID pandemia because I have this double nationality I'm still able to cross to United States, so we have it with us. Then we cross the border with the medication and within United States. We just send it by typical mail.

Stephania Taladrid: You don't feel nervous crossing with the medications when you do that,

Speaker 7: No. That's why it's not a controlled medication. It works also for [unintelligible 00:07:31] It's not an unsafe medication to someone to have. We just cross [unintelligible 00:07:40] very commonly.

Stephania Taladrid: Do you ever worry that you might be sued in Texas or in another state in the US?

Speaker 7: No, not really. [chuckles]

Stephania Taladrid: Why is that not a concern?

Speaker 7: Probably could be because I live in Tijuana and also because we already learn a lot of how to work on, let's say on the side of the legal context in Mexico, of course, the United States has a different process that we are aware of that but we know there are ways.

Stephania Taladrid: Do you essentially feel like you've found a way around the Texas law. Would it be fair to say that?

Speaker 7: They're different and there's a way because we just did it. We are going to continue to keep doing it. With more strength and for more woman as well.

David Remnick: The New Yorker's Stephania Taladrid reporting. A lot of what we were hearing in that piece hinges on the use of drugs to induce abortions, which the FDA says are safe up to the 10th week of pregnancy but Texas just passed a new law SB4 that makes it a crime, a felony to distribute those drugs to a pregnant person after seven weeks. We're joined again by our colleague Jeannie Suk Gersen who's a contributing writer and a professor of law at Harvard University. Jeannie, tell us what does SB4 aim to do in the state of Texas?

Jeannie Suk Gersen: Essentially SB4 reduces the timeframe for when someone can legally have an abortion via medication. It was 10 weeks, and this law says seven weeks, 49 days into their pregnancy. Second, the law imposes a state jail felony carrying up to $10,000 in fines and two years in prison. You can't just get on the phone with someone and get a prescription. What options do women who want to have self-managed or medication abortions, what options did they have?

Well, for one thing, it's unclear how this law can be enforced if they're getting the medications mailed to them. Maybe the government can engage in undercover sting operations like they sometimes do for drugs or for child pornography. Short of that, Texans are still going to be able to have access to medication abortion online through the mail especially when it's coming from a different country on a mail-order pharmacy.

Jia Tolentino: What's the risk for someone who purchases these medications in another country like Mexico, where they're available over the counter?

Jeannie Suk Gersen: They will likely be subject to criminal liability under SB4. Again, though, will this law be able to be enforced effectively because if you're an activist bringing a medication across the border, and you're engaged in underground networks using different precautions to work and give these medications, it's very difficult to track them but they would be violating the law.

David Remnick: Jeannie Suk Gersen, thanks so much. I'm David Remnick here with Jia Tolentino, and we've been looking at this critical moment for abortion rights in the United States and the threat to reproductive choice in much of the country.

Jia Tolentino: David, I think this question about abortion drugs touches on something that's really important to me. I think a lot about how well-meaning supporters of abortion rights often end up invoking coat-hanger imagery, you see it at protests, this idea that we can't revert to the battle days. For much of human history, women have helped each other end pregnancies as they needed. There is no inherent reason why women would need to ask permission of any authority whatsoever to get an abortion. We have to keep in mind the safety of abortion as a procedure, and the fact that the right to an abortion as a policy remains as consistently popular as it has always been.

The people who want to end it are a minority. They've gained an enormous amount of leverage. In many ways, the pro-choice movement has been playing defense for a long time and a lot of places and losing. It really doesn't have to go this way. Oregon has established a right to abortion in its state constitution. New York recently codified the protections of Roe in state law. For those of us who believe in reproductive choice, we need to remember these are rights that we have to actively affirmatively protect on the state and local level.

David Remnick: Jia Tolentino, thanks for doing this episode with us, Jia. It's been great to work with you.

Jia Tolentino: I'm so glad to be here. Thanks, David.

[00:13:07] [END OF AUDIO]

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