Latinos are more pro-choice than ever before. What spurred this change?

Published October 19, 2024 at 8:15 AM EDT

Raquel [R] and Rebeca Salas at their home in Phoenix, AZ, on Oct. 6, 2024.

In Arizona, President Biden won by a sliver back in 2020 –just over ten thousand votes.

Arizona Latinos helped deliver that victory. They're a quarter of all eligible voters in this state – and that's the largest percentage of Latino voters in any battleground state.

This week, Consider This host Ailsa Chang's reporting led her to an RV in the arid state. She joined Mayra Rodriguez on her mission of going directly after this bloc of voters on the issue she cares the most about – Abortion. Even if it means enduring lousy air conditioning in the RV when it's 108 degrees outside.

"You get sweaty, it is hot, right? And this is what I tell my children, and any people that complain about this heat, if you don't like to heat, then imagine hell," Rodriguez told Chang.

Hell, to Rodriguez, would be seeing Prop 139 pass – that's a ballot measure that would expand access to abortion beyond the current 15 weeks here in Arizona, and would enshrine it as a right under the state's constitution.

This movable billboard is emblazoned with urgent warnings about abortion.
But Rodriguez has an uphill battle here. Because according to Pew Research Center, 62% of Latinos believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But it wasn't always this way.

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Changing values

Two decades ago, only a third of Latinos believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Today, that number has risen to 62 percent. So why are Latino voters in this country changing their minds about abortion?

Consider This spoke with some Latina voters in Arizona to ask their thoughts on why.

Raquel Salas and her daughter Rebeca, feel that even addressing the topic was considered taboo for many years.

"I feel that the perception is that we don't have abortions because we live inside the Catholic Church and we just follow whatever the priest says we will do. And again, in general, the perception about Latinos is so wrong," said Raquel.

The Salas family emigrated from Hermosillo, Mexico in 2011 - when Rebeca was just 7 years old. And when she was growing up, the mere topic of abortion never came up. Raquel says that was true for her too, as a girl in Mexico.

Raquel's mother had her at the age of 17. "Back then, when girls got pregnant, they either. came to the U.S. to get an abortion so nobody knew, or they would force them to get married."

All of that changed between Raquel and Rebeca on June 24th, 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. Rebeca was on a trip in Italy when she found out:

"The first thing I did was call my mom and I was like, 'what is going on? I don't understand.' And, we talked about it, but I was just I was livid."

A few days later, Rebeca was back in Arizona, and decided to join a protest at the Capitol. And her mom insisted on joining her.

Both Raquel and Rebeca say they would never get an abortion themselves. But they both want to protect access for others.

"I know that after Trump's presidency, a lot of people got scared. Many of our rights were being endangered. [AND] when they start limiting rights, they're affecting the most underserved population. And if you do this to my neighbor, what's coming next?" Raquel added.

Culture from back home.

Margarita Acosta lives in Cochise Stronghold - a remote canyon dotted with craggy granite boulders. Shehas found peace here, over something she just started speaking publicly about, that happened 40 years ago.

Acosta was 29 and living in Bogota when she found out she was pregnant. But abortion was illegal in Colombia at the time – you could spend years in prison just for getting caught inside a clinic. Still, she knew she did not want to have the baby. So, she found a secret clinic, and made an appointment.

"I remember, like, just a regular apartment complex. It was on the third floor, and there was no no lift."

The doctor told her to come alone, and that there would be no anesthesia since she'd have to walk herself outside.

"So he did his thing and then they gave me a pad and he said, 'You're going to bleed a lot, but if it's more than three days and it's a lot of pain, go to the emergency room. Don't come here. Like, OK. I remember going down the steps, just looking at the floor, and I had high heels on."

Acosta never spoke about it because of the shame she felt. And immigrating to the U.S. soon after made her feel a sense of freedom she hadn't experienced in Colombia.

The same year that Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion became legal in her home country.

"Maybe this country that they say that we were behind, maybe we were ahead," she told Chang. "Because I know what's coming for you, now. You have to pay attention."