When its six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1, 2024, Florida joined nearly two dozen other U.S. states that ban abortion or greatly restrict it.
These laws came into effect after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade ended nearly 50 years of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.
Florida health officials in 2023 reported more than 84,000 abortions statewide, including nearly 7,800 from out-of-state residents.
The Tampa Bay Times recently reported that about 2 in 5 abortions in Florida over the past six years occurred in the first six weeks of pregnancy, meaning that roughly 60% of the procedures performed over that time frame would be illegal under the new restrictions.
The new laws in Florida and other states are sending some Americans across the border into Mexico to access an abortion, where the procedure was legalized in recent years.
Clinics in Mexico do not require proof of residency, so solid numbers about who they are treating are hard to come by. But providers in Mexico report they have been seeing more Americans.
In 2022, Luisa García, director of Profem, an abortion clinic in the border city of Tijuana, told NPR that the percentage of patients coming from the United States had jumped from 25% to 50% in just the two months following the Dobbs decision.
My research and teaching focuses on gender and sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean. I often ask students to think about the differences between the United States and Latin America — and the struggles the two regions share.
Different paths
In recent years, the U.S. and Mexico have each struggled over access to abortion care, with the two countries moving in opposite directions.
The year before the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled the criminalization of abortion by the northern state of Coahuila unconstitutional. This decision set a precedent that led to decriminalization at the federal level in 2023.
Change has since been slow. Only 13 of Mexico’s 31 states have modified their penal codes to reflect the court’s resolution, with Jalisco being the latest state to do so, in April 2024.
Unlike in the U.S., federal laws in Mexico do not automatically overrule local ones. But Mexican women living in states where abortions are illegal can still have one in a federally run hospital or clinic. And the federal statute protects the staff of those facilities from punishment.
Marea Verde movement
A crucial force behind the legalization of abortion care in Latin America is a movement called Green Tide, or Marea Verde, which emerged in Argentina and expanded across the region over the past two decades.
Although it began as a collective fight for abortion rights, Green Tide has grown to encompass issues such as the prevention of violence against women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as femicide – the violent death of women motivated by gender.
Expansion of abortion access in Mexico
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022, Mexican organizations offering abortions have expanded locations to increase choices for Mexican and U.S. residents seeking care. For example, Fundación MSI opened its newest clinic in Cancún late last year.
It chose this location intentionally, MSI’s Latin America regional managing director told the health news website Stat. Cancún’s status as a popular tourist destination means that multiple U.S. airports offer direct flights for about US$400 round trip. In-person abortion services range from $250 to $350. MSI’s website caters to Americans by offering information in English and featuring links to search for flights.