Acompañamiento: Feminist Interventions on Abortion Access Across Mexico

• In Event: 40820 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Reproductive Justice

Abstract

I will present preliminary findings from my exploratory fieldwork about the feminist networks providing logistical, technical, and emotional support—acompañamiento—for self-managed abortions across Mexico. Once limited to Latin America, these networks expanded after Roe v. Wade’s reversal, harnessing medical and digital technology to transport abortion pills and provide accompaniment. This collective action stems from a long history of feminist mobilization around reproductive health. I will trace this history in Mexican reproductive health care activism and present preliminary findings from my fieldwork in Mexico City, where I interviewed activists working in these networks and did observations in public and private abortion clinics.
I will highlight the shifting meaning of clandestinity around abortion, the daily logistics of these networks, how technology enables persistent action, and how they organized across borders after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. On one hand, I will map the evolving geographies of activism and how they challenge traditional, state-bound actions, illustrating how grassroots feminism is ‘DIYing’ healthcare and reshaping the transnational reproductive justice landscape. On the other, I will present tensions that this activism entails, such as revealing how the state relies on the unpaid labor of women to fulfill its healthcare obligations and how this mobilization might alert the state of strategies that could have the unintended consequence of further regulating abortion care.

Author

• Daniela Sanchez Lopez, University of Texas-Austin