THE ZIKA EFFECT: “HELP! I NEED ABORTION!”
The emails arrive at an accelerating pace. Once sporadic, they now come in an incessant stream of 40, 45 or 50 a day. Most are in Spanish or Portuguese. Others are in broken English.
All express the same sentiment, the same fear, the same desperate plea.
“Help!” one begins. “Zika in Venezuela. I need abortion!”
The emails are from mothers in Latin America who are scared of giving birth to children with microcephaly, the mysterious condition marked by an undersized head and brain damage doctors have linked to the mosquito-born Zika virus.
Some of the women say they have already tested positive for the virus. Others say they only fear they have contracted the disease and their child will be born disabled.
All of them are asking for something that is simple yet elusive — and generally illegal — in this part of the world: abortion pills.
In more than 1,000 emails to Women on Web, a Canada-based group that provides advice and medication for women wanting an abortion in countries where it is banned, they beg for the pills that are banned in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru or El Salvador.
Laws against abortion vary by country Some, like El Salvador, outlaw abortion in all cases, including rape and incest. Others, such as Colombia, allow for abortions when a fetus displays signs of a severe deformity.
Across the region, Zika has thrown predominantly Catholic, socially conservative countries into a sudden and fierce debate over abortion. In some countries, arguments are raging at the highest levels of the judicial system.
In the meantime, women are writing to Women on Web, asking for pills.
The organization was founded in 2005 by Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician.
Although the group has been sending packages of Mifepristone and Misoprostol to women around the world for more than a decade, Gomperts said they have seen a sharp uptick in emails from women in Brazil since the onset of the Zika crisis.
For example, the number of Brazilian women contacting Women on Web had nearly tripled, up from 100 in early December (before the Zika outbreak became public) to 285 in early February.
“We think that is related to the Zika outbreak. We cannot explain it any other way,” she said. “Probably a lot of women are looking for abortion services now.”
Although Gompert s stressed considering an abortion for any reason, especially in a country that doesn’t allow it, is always a terrifying decision, she said Zika had made the decision even more agonizing.
She added the emails reflect only the tip of the outbreak iceberg. In Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia, only about 60 per cent of households have Internet access. In El Salvador, it’s even less.
That means the poorest women are unable to ask for pills. The poor meanwhile, also tend to live in areas without air conditioning and with more standing water — where the mosquitoes that carry the virus breed — putting them at greater risk of contracting Zika in the first place.
“It is the poorest women who are suffering from this crisis,” Gomperts said. “It is not women in the upperclass neighbourhoods, who can protect themselves from mosquito bites.”
Gomperts and other abortion rights activists are calling on countries in Latin America to loosen their abortion restrictions, if not permanently, then at least temporarily.
“I haven’t seen anything from the governments of these countries themselves that indicate they are reconsidering the restrictive laws because of this crisis. I haven’t seen any of that,” she said.
“The only calls that have gone out from health ministers is ‘Don’t get pregnant,’ which is kind of an unrealistic demand I think, if contraception is not available for the poorest …
“Of course men are responsible for having sex and getting women pregnant as well, but the reality is that men refuse to take this responsibility seriously. So women are the ones who get pregnant and they are the ones who are called upon to prevent getting pregnant.”