Hi, and welcome to Telefem! It’s so nice to meet you! If this is your first time here, we want to tell you that you’re in a safe space, full of trust. We are here to answer all your questions and provide you with trustworthy information regarding safe abortion in Mexico. Let me introduce you to one of our articles, and if you still have questions, feel free to contact us through WhatsApp!
This time, we want to have a space to reflect on why abortion must be accessible to all people. Some barriers limit many women and people with the capacity to gestate from exercising their rights. Let’s talk about them.
Abortion Access Isn’t Equal Without Inclusion
Abortion is a sexual and reproductive right, as well as access to contraceptive methods and comprehensive sexuality education. Safe abortion is a procedure in which bodily and reproductive autonomy are exercised as a means to free and desired motherhood, while allowing access and recognition of other human rights. To guarantee this right, there’s a need to provide attention to those people belonging to groups historically in contexts of social lag and discrimination and therefore, who can be most affected by unsafe abortions.1
In Mexico, abortion is legal in 23 states of the Republic, but being legal doesn’t mean that women can go to a clinic to request the service. First, there is not yet a guarantee that it will be provided nationwide, and when offered, it is only in the capitals or some big cities.
The service remains inaccessible to many women who are economically day-to-day, and cannot pay for transportation to reach where the service is provided; they do not have support networks to guide or accompany them, which is very important because many of them have never left their places of origin and are unaware of who can’t turn to. Many may not even know that health institutions offer this service. There are many cases that can be mentioned that exemplify why women with limited resources are forced to go through unfair situations.2
It is also essential to understand that although legal paths exist, socially there is still a stigma about abortion that criminalizes those who think about exercising, or exercise, this right, which significantly affects the process since a high stigma has greater psycho-affective repercussions. Abortion stigma operates simultaneously at multiple levels: social, cultural, and political, so it is a phenomenon that is also experienced differently. Access to abortion services tends to decrease, and stigma tends to increase when people have less power or fewer resources.1
Intending to reach more people in contexts where access to health services for abortion is not so simple, at Telefem we have remote medical guidance so that specialists can provide you with advice.
Lack of abortion access for poor, racialized, and Indigenous people
To be clear about this issue, it is necessary to discuss intersectionality. It’s an analytical tool proposed by African American lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw that allows studying, understanding, and responding to how various identities experience different types of discrimination and disadvantages. This approach enables comprehensive contemplation of problems and does not generalize conclusions to address realities.1
An example of an intersectional approach is working-class Indigenous and Afro-descendant women living in contexts of social lag, gender, racial, and class discrimination, while privileged white women possibly only have to face gender discrimination.1
Institutional racism produces barriers to access to clinical abortions: women of color frequently face discrimination in health services and suffer delays in post-abortion care. In Mexico, indigenous women were at greater risk of having an unsafe abortion, defined as an abortion performed outside clinical contexts or by a non-medical provider.3
Intersectionality helps us understand that each person’s contexts are different; discrimination and difficulties in accessing an abortion service also vary. The needs of a childbearing person living in Mexico City will not be the same as those of someone living in an indigenous community in the Sierra. Taking these contexts into account is fundamental when implementing reproductive health services.
The right to a safe abortion should include trans and non-binary people
It is common when thinking about abortion to think only of cisgender women, which means women who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth,4 but they are not the only ones with the capacity to get pregnant; girls, adolescents, transgender men, non-binary people, gender-fluid people, among others, can also do so.
But what relevance does this have to the topic of abortion? What is not mentioned does not exist; by speaking only of “women” we exclude all those people who can carry a pregnancy and therefore have the right to access an abortion. Moreover, they face systematic violence exercised by institutions responsible for guaranteeing and providing sexual and reproductive care services. These public dependencies lack trained personnel, protocols to attend to them, or sensitization on the subject.5
This is why the term “childbearing people or people with the capacity to get pregnant” or “gestating people” is requested, so that the perspective expands beyond women and protocols for care for diversity are created.
At Telefem, we know that all childbearing people need to be named and made visible to have opportunities for care without stigma and discrimination, which is why we connect you with specialists who are sensitive to accompanying you in a process with an unwanted pregnancy.
This information will be helpful to you. To learn all you need about safe abortion, reproductive health, and safe abortion, you’re welcome to visit our blog. We help you find answers to all your questions. We’ll see you there!
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* This content is for informational purposes only and does not replace professional medical advice.
References:
- Secretaría de Inclusión Social e Igualdad de Género. 2024. Inclusión de bolsillo: el derecho a abortar. Gobierno de Baja California. Visit February 2025. [Internet]. Available at: https://www.bajacalifornia.gob.mx/Documentos/sisig/El_derecho_al_aborto.pdf
- Gaytán-Villalpando B. A. 2024. El aborto un problema de clase en México. Interconectando Saberes, (Dossier 1). Pág: 81-89. Visit February 2025. [Internet]. Available at: https://is.uv.mx/index.php/IS/article/view/2851/4704
- Veldhuis S., G. Sánchez-Ramírez y D. Blair G. 2022. Sigue siendo un sistema precario. Barreras de acceso a abortos clínicos: la experiencia de acompañantes en tres regiones mexicanas. Cadernos de Saúde Pública [online]. v. 38 (4). Visit February 2025. [Internet]. Available at: https://www.scielosp.org/pdf/csp/2022.v38n4/ES124221/es
- Proyecto para la implementación del Protocolo de actuación ante a la violencia contra las mujeres en el Sistema de Acogida de Protección Internacional. Identidades de género. Anexo 6 plus – Registro de casos de violencias asociadas al género. Visit February 2025. [Internet]. Available at: https://www.acnur.org/es-es/sites/es-es/files/legacy-pdf/6352a80f4.pdf
- Torres A. 2021. Personas con capacidad de gestar por el derecho a decidir. Resistencias feministas. Visit February 2025. [Internet]. Available at: https://www.zonadocs.mx/2021/09/28/personas-con-capacidad-de-gestar-por-el-derecho-a-decidir/