Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how abortion advocates in Mexico respond to the widening legal access of abortion in Mexico to facilitate care for those now stranded in legally-restricted settings in the United States after the overturning of Roe. Findings inform visions of reproductive justice post-Roe.

Paper long abstract:

This paper takes the historic reversal of Roe v. Wade as its starting point, examining its reverberations across borders. To do so, I explore how abortion acompañantes in Mexico respond to the widening legal access of abortion in Mexico to facilitate abortion care for those now stranded in legally-restricted settings in the United States post-Dobbs. This study draws on 25 in-depth interviews with Mexican abortion advocates, supplemented by three months of participant observation conducted between 2022 and 2023. Participants ranged in age from 24 to 55. On average, participants had worked as acompañantes for 5 years, and ranged from 2 years to over 15 years. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, translated into English, and analyzed using a flexible coding approach. Findings highlight three central themes: (1) navigating shared risk; (2) disrupting notions of abortion care; and (3) building transnational solidarity. By highlighting the cross-border risks generated post-Dobbs, the findings underscore the importance of attending to transnational reproductive politics. Indeed, the advocates highlighted the ways in which legal changes transgress borders, noting how the fall of Roe v. Wade has generated ongoing implications in Mexico and beyond. In addition to the transgression of abortion legislation across borders, the findings of this study highlight how the model of care supported by abortion accompaniment collectives transgresses biomedical and legal understandings of abortion. The act of self-managed abortion care supported by abortion advocates points to a broader vision of reproductive justice in a post-Roe world.