Flea Market Raids in Rio Grande Valley Leave Women Without Birth Control and Abortion Care

[TexasTowelie]

The few reproductive health options women in the Rio Grande Valley have are dwindling: Recent raids on the RGV's biggest flea market have pushed contraception and abortifacient providers out.

After multiple family planning and abortion clinics closed, more women began seeking misoprostol, a drug commonly available in Mexican pharmacies and frequently transported across the border.

While misoprostol is not the ideal replacement for legal abortion care supervised by a doctor, it is one of the safer methods of self-inducing abortion.

But, as MSNBC reported this week, after the Sheriff of Hidalgo County charged nine market vendors with selling prescription drugs like diet pills and Viagra, birth control and misoprostol have disappeared from the markets.

More at http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/15167/flea-market-raids-in-rio-grande-valley-leave-women-without-birth-control-and-abortion-care .

[Ilsa]

1. Losing the clinics means desperate women are turning

To unsupervised self-medicating. This could be dangerous if the abortion is incomplete.

Perry needs another baptism.

[Niceguy1]

2. good.

These sales were neither lwgal, or safe for the women involved.

[They_Live]

3. These people are running out of options

have any ideas that might actually help them?

[Niceguy1]

4. there are still clinics

Around... I can't support businesses circumventing health regulations to make a profit at the expense of womens health.

[They_Live]

5. the regulations are forcing them into this situation

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/05/draconian-new-tx-abortion-restrictions-close-rio-grande-valleys-last-womens-clinic/

http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/03/last_abortion_clinic_in_the_rio_grande_valley_shuttered.html

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/01/22/in-texas-rio-grande-valley-a-reproductive-health-care-crisis-goes-from-bad-to-worse/

The closest clinics are 150 or 250 miles away.

[Niceguy1]

7. yes but the flea market vendors are dangerous

Crooks...I used to sell in the market. All they care about is $$$, and often are poorly educated. Not people who should be dispensing non fda approved mexican drugs with no medical trainng.

Fix the laws , dont set up a dangerous black market...

[They_Live]

9. Oh I agree with you that it's dangerous

and that the laws need to be "fixed". Until that happens, people will look for the easiest solution, and people will get hurt.

[Rstrstx]

6. The pulgas are often used by the poorest here to get medication

They would openly sell antibiotics and all the other goodies you can get in Progreso, at about twice the price. It was just like going across the border, they just charged people extra knowing full well they couldn't cross. Never saw any controlled substances there, but those aren't "officially" for sale across the border either. I doubt the sheriff's primary target was abortion drugs, there was a very wide range of things you could buy from Mexico at the flea markets that aren't available over the counter here.

Slightly strange that Homeland Security has no qualms about people bringing in non-scheduled drugs from across the river but the local sheriffs come down on the flea markets with full force.

[TxDemChem]

8. All the state is doing is leading women to more and more desperate measures

It's a terrible situation.