The text message Cynthia Menchaca received this summer was one she was seeing more and more: A woman living in Texas said she had left a violent relationship only to discover she was pregnant, and she desperately wanted an abortion. The woman had learned that Menchaca could send her abortion pills from Mexico, where the procedure has been decriminalized in several states.

       But the growing U.S. demand for abortion care is not limited to deliveries of medication, according to advocates such as Menchaca, who lives in Coahuila state in northeastern Mexico.

       Clinics in Tijuana and Mexico City, as well as activists in the northwestern city of Hermosillo, say they have seen women crossing the border from Texas, Louisiana and Arizona seeking access to abortion.