How a network of women in Latin America transformed safe, self-managed abortions

June 8, 2025
By Marta Martínez, Liana Simstrom
Podcast: 41-Minute Listen

In November 1990, more than 3,000 women descended on the sleepy beach town of San Bernardo del Tuyú, Argentina, for what was becoming a legendary event.

Activists, doctors, academics, social workers and lawyers from across the Americas traveled all the way to attend a feminist gathering known as an Encuentro.

While they publicly debated their political demands, the piece of information that made the biggest impact on the future of abortion was exchanged in private, in whispers.

Continued; https://www.npr.org/2025/06/08/g-s1-68729/latin-america-abortion-activism

08.06.2025

Interviews/Podcasts

'La Escuela Socorrista

abortion accompaniment workshop

abortion manual

abortion pills

abortion support networks

Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe

First Responders Network

Gabriela Luchetti

green bandana

green wave

Ibis Reproductive Health

Kelly Blanchard

Las Libres

Lesbianas y Feministas por la Descriminalización del Aborto

Lesbians and Feminists for Abortion Decriminalization

self-managed abortion

self-managed abortion manual

Socorristas En Red

Veronica Cruz

Women on Waves

World Health Organization

Post-abortion peer support provides a safe space for Tasmanians

By Meg Whitfield
Feb 9, 2025

When Abi thinks back to her abortion, she remembers feeling deeply isolated.

"I kind of went through it in secret, and alone," she said. "And when difficult things came up, I had no-one to debrief [with]."

Accessing timely and affordable counselling services was difficult, and did not feel right for her circumstances.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-10/abortion-peer-workers-providing-safe-space-in-tasmania/104719560

09.02.2025

News

abortion stigma

abortion support networks

Jo Flanagan

peer support for abortion

Women's Health Tasmania

Self-managed abortion

10. January 2025
Author: Bielefeld University

In recent years, abortion has once again become a central topic of political and social debate. Some countries are opting for more liberal regulations, while in others conservative and right-wing forces are pushing through restrictive laws and policies. These developments are accompanied and driven by both anti-abortion movements and feminist activist organizations. On the feminist activist side, national, international and transnational groups and networks advocating self-managed abortions are playing an increasingly important role. An international research group will now analyze the role of feminist self-managed abortion activism at the Bielefeld Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF).

The group ‘Translocal Networks for Feminist Self-Manage Abortion in the Americas and Eu-rope: Transforming Law, Health and Culture Through Activism and Scholarship’ will be working at the ZiF in January. From 15 to 17 January, the researchers will discuss their work in a workshop with external guests.

Continued: https://aktuell.uni-bielefeld.de/2025/01/10/self-managed-abortion/?lang=en

US Feminists Look to Latin America for Models to Resist Abortion Bans

Latin American activists have navigated widespread abortion bans with information-sharing support networks.

By Naomi Braine , Truthout
January 3, 2025

As U.S. residents prepare for the start of a new Trump administration, we face increasing threats to health and bodily autonomy, especially for people facing unwanted pregnancies. Currently, 12 states have completely banned abortion, an additional six states have imposed bans within the first trimester and 19 states impose restrictions specifically on medication abortions.

In spite of expanding restrictions, the overall rate of abortions has increased nationally, as clinicians in states that allow abortion expand services to meet the needs of people traveling to find care. Meanwhile, an unknowable number of people with unwanted pregnancies have taken abortion pills to end a pregnancy safely and effectively in the privacy of their own home, a friend’s home or another safe space — a practice known as self-managed abortion (SMA).

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/us-feminists-look-to-latin-america-for-models-to-resist-abortion-bans/

03.01.2025

Commentary

abortion bans

abortion pills

abortion support networks

Las Libres

self-managed abortion

Abortion Prepping for the Trump Era

Preserving access to Plan B, misoprostol, and more isn’t just about stockpiling doses. It’s about building circles of trust.

Melissa Gira Grant
December 30, 2024

Trump’s return to the White House, accompanied by allies deeply hostile to anything related to reproductive and sexual health and rights, has sparked panic. As in late 2016 during the first Trump transition period, part of the problem is not knowing how far things could go. Checklists and tips are again circulating online, urging people to update the gender listed on government-issued identity documents, get an emergency supply of birth control pills or hormones, assemble an emergency folder of health documentation, buy a stash of Plan B, get an IUD before Inauguration Day. With access not only to abortion medication or hormones threatened but also a wide array of other drugs and vaccines, discourse over stockpiling medication—in case it becomes hard to access or is even taken off the market by a cowed Food and Drug Administration—has escalated, and in a way that would have been hard to imagine a few years ago.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/189502/abortion-trump-era-plan-b-misoprostol

The Underground Network Fighting for Teen Abortion Access in Texas

How a group of nonprofits in Texas is working together to usher minors across state lines for crucial reproductive care

By Olivia Rockeman
Aug 28, 2024

Throughout their early teens, DakotaRei Frausto struggled with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe form of premenstrual syndrome, as well as anemia and chronic nausea. In 2021, at age 16, Frausto went to a handful of clinics in their home state of Texas to seek out a birth control prescription, hoping it would help address their symptoms. But each of the clinics brushed off their pain or referred them to brochures rather than getting them in front of doctors, and Frausto, feeling defeated, gave up on trying to access birth control.

Soon after, when Frausto was 17, they started to experience more severe PMDD symptoms than usual. A pregnancy test confirmed they were eight weeks pregnant. “When I did test positive, I knew for a fact abortion in Texas wouldn’t be an option for me,” Frausto said, noting that the state’s six-week abortion ban went into effect in September 2021. “My immediate next thought was: How am I going to scrape together the resources to travel?”

Continued: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a61973788/the-underground-network-fighting-for-teen-abortion-access-in-texas/

Louisiana’s move to criminalize abortion pills is cruel and medically senseless

Louisiana, with one of the US’s worst maternal mortality rates, wants to make abortion medication a ‘controlled substance’

Moira Donegan
Wed 29 May 2024

This week, Louisiana moved to expand the criminalization of abortion further than any state has since before Roe v Wade was decided. On Thursday, the state legislature passed a bill that would reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol – the two drugs used in a majority of American abortions – as dangerous controlled substances.

Under both state and federal classifications, the category of controlled substances includes those medications known to cause mind-altering effects and create the potential for addictions, such as sedatives and opioids; abortion medications carry none of this potential for physical dependence, habit-forming or abuse. The move from Louisiana lawmakers runs counter to both established medical opinion and federal law.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/29/louisiana-abortion-pill-law

USA – More “navigators” are helping women travel to have abortions

By Lillian Mongeau Hughes
January 30, 2024

Chloe Bell is a case manager at the National Abortion Federation. She spends her days helping people cover the cost of an abortion and, increasingly, the interstate travel many of them need to get the procedure.

"What price did they quote you?" Bell asked a woman from New Jersey who had called the organization's hotline seeking money to pay for an abortion. Her appointment was the next day.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/abortion-travel-navigators/

30.01.2024

Commentary

abortion funds

abortion support networks

Brittany Fonteno

Chloe Bell

Melissa Fowler

National Abortion Federation

patient navigators

Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette

Access to abortion pills has grown since Dobbs

How activists, clinicians, and businesses are getting abortion medication to all 50 states.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Dec 27, 2023

Eighteen months after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, and with a new Supreme Court challenge pending against the abortion medication mifepristone, confusion abounds about access to reproductive health care in America.

Since the June 2022 decision, abortion rates in states with restrictions have plummeted, and researchers estimated last month that the Dobbs decision led to “approximately 32,000 additional annual births resulting from bans.” Journalists profiled women who carried to term since Dobbs because they couldn’t afford to travel out of their restrictive state.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/12/27/24015092/abortion-pills-mifepristone-roe-reproductive-misoprostol

27.12.2023

Commentary

Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine

abortion pills

abortion support networks

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Elisa Wells

Expanding Medication Abortion Access

Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project

medication abortion

mifepristone

misoprostol

misoprostol only abortions

National Abortion Federation

Plan C

Red State Access

Reproductive Health Initiative for Telehealth Equity and Solutions

self-managed abortion

shield laws

Society of Family Planning

telehealth abortion

telemedicine abortion

Inside the secretive network of pro-choice activists on the US-Mexico border

Restrictions on abortion are harsh in northern Mexico. But an ‘underground railroad’ is filling the gap in services

Dánae Vílchez, Verónica Martínez
21 November 2023

Alma (not her real name), a young Mexican woman, became pregnant unexpectedly in June 2021. She already had a child and had no plans to have another. But living in the northern border state of Sonora, she thought she had limited options. Abortion in Sonora is only permitted in cases of rape or if the life of the pregnant person is at risk – neither of which applied to Alma – and people can be imprisoned for up to six years.

Then, a friend told her a closely guarded secret. An ‘underground railroad’ of pro-choice activists could help Alma find a safe way to terminate her pregnancy in Hermosillo, the state capital.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/mexico-us-feminist-women-human-rights-abortion/