She found out in early November 2023. She was just five weeks pregnant and knew it even days before taking the test. “But it wasn’t the time. I had a daughter who was about to turn one year old… We couldn’t have her,” explains Anna Abeytia, a 28-year-old Arizonan. The most difficult thing was not the conversation with her partner or verbalizing that she wanted to have an abortion. For this woman of Mexican descent, the odyssey began right after making the decision. In Arizona, one of the States with the greatest restrictions on voluntary terminations of pregnancy, there was no time to lose. The medical service offered only two scenarios: either pay $900 and avoid the pitfalls of the committed medical bureaucracy. when he gave up or had a child he didn’t want to have. Abeytia opted for a third path that is increasingly common in the United States: traveling to another state with more guarantees to have an abortion.
She chose California, where the state Constitution protects the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy and is covered by Medicaid and private health insurance. So at the end of November, she put her sleeping baby in the car, let her partner rest in the passenger seat, and drove more than six hours to the medical center. “I just wanted to get there now and that there weren’t any ‘pro-lifers’ in the center, or that they wouldn’t deny me access because I wasn’t from California… I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible,” he says. Although the suggested treatment was abortion pills, he opted for a curettage—a much more invasive surgical procedure—since this did not require a subsequent revision. “I couldn’t come again. Everything was too strong,” he says.
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Like Abeytia, one in five women Those who had an abortion in the first six months of 2023 did so in states with more guarantees than those in which they lived, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization focused on sexual and reproductive rights. But many wonder how long the most generous States will want to assume these extra expenses. The New York Abortion Fund, for example, covered 200% more procedures since Florida banned access after the sixth week. For many, this trend is hanging by a thread.
Listening meeting on experiences related to abortion in Phoenix, September 26.VERONICA GABRIEL CARDENAS
A month after Abeytia had an abortion in California, while she was at the supermarket with her daughter, she began to bleed profusely. “I put on four pads in less than half an hour,” he remembers. In an emergency room in Phoenix, gynecologists confirmed the worst diagnosis: she was still pregnant and urgent intervention was necessary. “I remember being more afraid of what the doctors in Arizona might tell me than for my health, because I was much longer than 15 weeks… It’s absurd,” he says. Now, a year after what happened, he says he feels a lot of anger. “It is ridiculous to have had to add miles to my car, put my daughter in the car for six hours, and put my partner and I in such an uncomfortable situation, to have access to a procedure that I could have had right next to my house.” , criticism. “They want us to be ashamed, but this is our right.”
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, the federal legal precedent that protected access to pregnancy termination, legislation in Arizona, as in many other states, has been disputed terrain. From then on, a law from 1864 that prohibited abortion for any reason was once again in force in the southern state. After two years of activism, the feminist movement achieved the current law, which allows abortion only up to the first 15 weeks, without this service being covered by health insurance. From week 16 onwards – four months of gestation – no pregnancy complication is sufficient to warrant termination.
Yes ok more than 60% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, the repeal represented a huge step backwards in the sexual and reproductive rights of the more than 165 million North American women. That the decision now depends on each State once again called into question a slogan that seemed already accepted: that talking about abortion is talking about health. Today, around twenty states in the country have legislation that is less guaranteeing than two years ago and this has become one of the most politicized issues in the presidential elections, which will take place on November 5.
Roxana López, right, hugs Morena Herrera, a Salvadoran activist, after sharing her testimony about her abortion, in Nogales, Arizona, on September 27.VERONICA GABRIEL CARDENAS
The debate over voluntary termination of pregnancy is one of the issues that could decide the tight battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. That is why both have campaigned—with diametrically opposed narratives—in Arizona, one of the seven key states in these elections. Although Trump has modified his speech (he went from saying that abortion wanted to end by “decapitating newborn babies” to defending the three causes), he celebrates the fall of the federal norm. These three exceptions refer to when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or when the life of the woman or the fetus is in danger.
Meanwhile, Harris has been openly in favor of abortion, reiterating the idea that “politicians don’t have to make decisions for us.” The candidate has also recalled that “40% of Latinas live in a state where abortion is prohibited” and has dedicated much of her campaign precisely to convincing them, even in spanglish. Latino voters (and especially Latinas) are a crucial electorate since they have historically had very high abstention rates and their mobilization in these elections will take one of the two to the White House.
“The poor die and the rich abort”
Although abortion is not prohibited in Arizona, this right is also difficult to exercise even during the first 15 weeks of gestation. The most conservative movements have been in charge of shaping several laws designed exclusively for the providers of this medical service – known as the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers or trap laws— that turn the decision into a path full of setbacks. A 24-hour “reflection” period, a mandatory ultrasound in the presence of the pregnant woman, prohibiting the shipment of abortion pills, or two necessary medical visits before the procedure are some of those that apply in this state.
“It is trap laws They especially affect the most vulnerable women; especially Latinas,” says Paula Ávila-Guillén, executive director of the Women’s Equality Center (WEC). “We know that a large number of Latinas cannot always afford to apply for multiple permits at work or pay these absurd amounts of money.” According to five experts consulted by EL PAÍS, access to abortion in Arizona ranges between $400 and $20,000, depending on the state of pregnancy.
Human rights defender Rosa Hernández places an object as an offering on an altar in Las Vegas, Nevada.VERONICA GABRIEL CARDENAS
“The poor die and the rich have abortions,” he says. “The ban is not going to stop women from having abortions, it is simply making it a privilege.” Anna Abeytia knows that, even with the inconveniences and complications, she was “lucky.” “It terrifies me to think about the women who continue to have children they don’t want to have because there are politicians deciding for them,” she laments.
In the United States there is a national fund—National Network of Abortion Funds—that assumes many of the costs of transfers and abortions from one state to another. María Teresa Liebermann-Parraga She belongs to the delegation of Nevada, a state bordering Arizona with more lax legislation, and assures that they receive “dozens” of requests from women from other states weekly. The main challenge they have, in addition to financing, she says, is helping undocumented women or women who do not speak English. “Many are afraid that they could be deported,” he adds.
The wounds of being an unwanted child
For Linette Corrales, the prohibition of abortion goes far beyond the right of women to decide. Her voice, brave and broken, speaks on behalf of those who, like her, were unwanted children. “No matter how satisfactory my life is now, there are wounds that have not healed and that have their roots in that, in that they did not want to have me,” she says excitedly, holding her baby, Zahid, who is less than a year old, in her arms. “My welcome and that of my son were very different,” he laments. She tells it while containing her emotion at a meeting of Latin women organized by WEC to alleviate the weight of these experiences that are usually carried in silence. “They have to feel the shame.” [los políticos conservadores]. Not us.”
Linette Corrales with her son Zahid, in Yuma, Arizona.VERONICA GABRIEL CARDENAS
Corrales knows she is not the only one. The ban on abortion is causing thousands of children to grow up in families that did not want to bring them into the world or do not have the capacity to care for them. “Our stories are still not talked about enough because it makes many feel uncomfortable to think that they themselves were not loved. Or that they had a child they didn’t want. There is shame in admitting it, but it happens,” he says. The feeling of emptiness, the fear of having sexual relations or the taboo when planning are some of the consequences that never went away. “Although Latinos are very conservative on this issue, it is changing because it has touched many of us closely.” More than 6.5 million Latinas live in restrictive states.
Although the Latino electorate has historically been more conservative, the mobilization of women and young people is turning the stereotype on its head. According to a study by the National Latino Institute for Reproductive Justice, 82% of Latinos who will vote agree that each woman make her own decisions about her own body. Raquel Cruz, a Guatemalan migrant living in Las Vegas, Nevada, summarizes this growing awareness as the legacy of the Green Tide and the Latin American feminist movements that were the preludes to the very guaranteeing legislation present in much of Latin America. “We don’t want Roe vs. Wade back. “We want something better, that does not leave any migrant behind.”
Raquel Cruz, Guatemalan migrant living in Las Vegas.
VERONICA GABRIEL CARDENAS
Thus, in states like Arizona and Nevada, Latino mobilization sounds louder than ever. Cruz, Corrales and Abeytia are some of the thousands of women who are advocating for change in their community. On November 5, they will not only eagerly await the results of the presidential election but will be on the lookout for Proposition 139, a citizen-initiated amendment that seeks to establish a state constitutional right to abortion. Like Arizona, ten other states will vote in two weeks for electoral amendments that protect this right. Whatever happens on November 6, no one will sigh peacefully. “We know that our rights are always in dispute,” Cruz concludes.
