Feminist Organizations and NGOs

“Abortion is the most important claim of feminism… the fact that abortion is a crime rather than a human right [reflects how] this system does not want women to be free.” (1)

In 2007, Mexico's Federal District became the first and currently only state within Mexico to decriminalize abortion in the first trimester. Those in favor of the newly instated abortion law reveled in the possibility of access to legal and safe abortion and healthcare services for many individuals across the state. However, millions of women elsewhere where this same law does not apply have to resort to often expensive and unsafe procedures in order to deal with their unwanted pregnancies and other healthcare concerns. To combat these issues various feminist organizations and NGO's have continually worked towards creating policies and procedures which allow them to assist individuals through a variety of services aimed at making the process of abortions safer domestically, regardless of the laws currently in place.

While abortion has been decriminalized by the state through the legal system within Mexico City and the organizations present there no longer have to struggle towards that objective, other organizations have pointed to the limitations that this circumstance provides. “ The law more strictly binds Mexico City NGOs in part because they rely on private funding agencies, an arrangement which considerably hampers their work in her view. [Organizations working outside of Mexico City], by contrast, operate exclusively with donations and honorariums precisely to avoid such restrictions. “[Mexico City NGOs] are continually administering the problem [rather than solving it] in order to have [governmental and private] funding and political power”. (1) This critique speaks to the distinct approaches that are utilized by the feminist NGO organizations which are often narrowed and controlled by the state system and policies they exist in.

In analyzing the organizations that work within Mexico City as well as the other areas where abortion has not yet been decriminalized, the variations that exist with respect to the work that is being done and the resources provided point to the stratified nature of the legal policies and practices of abortion. The posts provide information on some of the most prominent feminist organizations in Mexico and can be utilized as resources for understanding the strategies, tactics and methods in order to apply them in other areas of Mexico as well as transnationally.

(1) Singer, Elyse. "Abortion and Human Rights in Mexico." AnthropologyNews. Accessed April 2016. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2016/04/11/abortion-and-human-rights-in-mexico/.