It is unclear how many women may have decided not to get abortions at the already overstretched public hospitals because it took too long to get appointments or because they had to wait too long for the required ultrasound.

Image A man looked at portraits of women who support abortion rights during a recent demonstration in Mexico City. Credit... Alexandre Meneghini/Associated Press

Since unrestricted abortions became legal in April 2007, doctors have performed (or overseen when pills are used) some 12,500 of the procedures at public clinics and hospitals, according to the Health Ministry.

But at least some women have tried other methods.

Alejandra, 24, who works for the city’s women’s institute, said that when she went to get an abortion last year at a public hospital, a social worker there told her that she would need to pay for her own ultrasound, which is supposed to be free, and that she would need to be accompanied by a family member. Scared off by the description of the risks and the procedure, she fled the hospital.

She ended up taking pills to induce an abortion, without seeing a doctor, and developed a serious infection. She asked that only her first name be used because she said she recently received a death threat for speaking at a city event celebrating the new law. Another woman, a 27-year-old high school literature teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said her friends told her that they were treated like prostitutes at public hospitals. She also took abortion pills but said they were ineffective, requiring her to visit a doctor to complete her abortion.

To speed up treatment, officials are moving low-risk abortions out of overworked public hospitals into three smaller public clinics, based in part on models in Britain and the United States. The smaller staffs there should be more supportive, they hope.

On a recent morning at one of those clinics, called Beatriz Velasco de Alemán, in a working-class neighborhood, women waited with friends, husbands and boyfriends in a small courtyard, chatting, fiddling with their cellphones or staring into space.

One 27-year-old married mother of two who had come to the clinic for an abortion saw no contradiction between her religion and abortion. “I’m Catholic but now the law has been passed,” she said as she went inside for her appointment.