Valeria, a 17-year-old girl skateboarding with her friends on the boardwalk in Veracruz, on the south-eastern coast of Mexico, is enthusiastic about recent legal changes that have decriminalised abortion in her state.
“I totally agree with it. Every woman should be able to decide about her body and not have to go to jail,” she told me, explaining how she’s also seen first-hand how the criminalisation of abortion can threaten the health and lives of women and girls.
One of her friends had an abortion before it was legalised, she said. “It was very unsafe because proper methods weren’t used [...] She suffered a lot, and couldn't even go to a clinic because she didn't have enough money.”
