’I Need an Abortion’: The Text That Gets Pills Sent in Secret Leire Ventas - BBC News Mundo
go to original August 27, 2022

She also knew that she wouldn't get an abortion in Texas, where she lives, as the state has one of the strictest abortion laws in the United States.

So the mother of a four-month-old turned to social media to search for solutions. She found a number online, and sent a desperate text on WhatsApp: "I need an abortion".

Across the border in Monterrey, Mexico, Sandra Cardona received the message.

Six years ago, Ms Cardona, 54, founded the Red Necesito Abortar (I Need an Abortion Network) to help Mexican women get access to abortion pills, because terminating an abortion was severely restricted in the country at the time.

She chose the name so that women who needed an abortion could find it easily online.

The group sends misoprostol, a medication that induces abortion, to women who ask for it, and helps house some of them when undergoing the procedure at their headquarters in the northern state of Nuevo Leon.

Some come to Ms Cardona to get the medicines "and we explain (the procedure) to them," she said. "And some want to stay and we 'accompany' them," - meaning to sit with them and take them through a protocol established by the World Health Organization that lays out how to use the pill when there is not a doctor present.

While in the past, they have largely helped women in Monterrey and migrants heading north, the number of Americans has steadily increased over the past year.

"A year or so ago I attended to the first woman," Ms Cardona told BBC. "I do not speak English, but with the help of Google we understood each other."

Anna arrived in Monterrey one afternoon in October. That night, she had her abortion and left the next morning.

She has not been the only one, Ms Cardona said. "The demand from Texas has grown a lot" - a reflection of the divergent paths Mexico and its northern neighbor have taken on abortion.

Read the rest at BBC News Mundo

Related: New Restrictions From Major Abortion Funder Could Further Limit Access (Washington Post)

  Learn about I Need to Abort Network