Abortion access and obstacles in the Borderland

EL PASO, Texas - El Pasoans looking to have an abortion will have to cross state or national boundaries.

Our news partners at El Paso Matters and La Verdad in Juarez recently published a three-part series titled Abortion on the Border.

The article included personal stories from women who sought to end their pregnancies.

Texas Senate Bill 8, signed by Governor Greg Abbott, bans abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy.

In fact, anyone aiding and abetting the abortion can also be held liable.

If a woman living in El Paso wants to end her pregnancy, she has a couple of choices.

She can drive about 40 minutes to Las Cruces where restrictions on abortions are limited.

It does come with a cost though, sometimes as high as $1,500.

Let's say the woman's financial resources are limited.

That woman can cross into Juarez to get abortion-inducing medication.

Even though the Mexico Supreme Court decriminalized abortions, surgical abortions in Chihuahua are illegal and punishable by law.

Anyone helping that person get an abortion can also be held liable.

But there is a medication called misoprostol, an abortion-inducing medication that is sold over the counter as an ulcer treatment at many Mexican pharmacies.

The cost of a 28-pill box can run up to $20.

That medication has several side effects which include cramping and bleeding, not to mention the possibility that it may not end the pregnancy.

According to El Paso matters and La Verdad, a statewide survey of abortion clinics found that 12% of patients living along the Texas-Mexico border had at some point attempted to manage their own abortions — compared to 7% of patients throughout Texas, and 2.6% nationwide.