Honduras has legalized the morning-after pill to prevent pregnancy. But only after the rapes
Date: 2023-09-22 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: NEWS 18+
True, only in cases of rape.
In Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, which has the strictest reproductive rules for women in the world, we meet 25-year-old Laura, who is two months pregnant and not ready to have a child.
“Two months ago I spent an evening out and met someone. I was careless and got pregnant,” the girl says, wincing. “It’s hard for me, I live alone and there’s no one to support me.”
The morning-after pill was banned in the country in 2009, and abortion can lead to six years in prison, even in cases of rape and incest.
But Laura heard that it was possible to terminate a pregnancy with the help of prescription pills for stomach cancer - when administered vaginally, they cause severe bleeding of the uterine wall and miscarriage. Now the girl is going to buy these pills through a drug dealer named Jose, who, according to her, is well known to people her age in Tegucigalpa.
In the evening, Jose and I go to the pharmacy to pick up medicine for another client. The smell of his cologne fills the car. Jose says his ex-girlfriend, who works at the hospital, writes the prescriptions.
Jose sets the price depending on the client’s financial capabilities - his most expensive deal was for 7,000 Honduran lempiras (about $280), but Jose would sometimes reduce the price to 1,500 lempiras. He says he has a constant flow of clients.
“Students, girls who are just beginning their sexual life, mature and elderly mothers, women who became pregnant after an affair,” Jose talks about his clients, among whom he names several high-ranking people. “These are mostly women. Men often do not take responsibility ".
Jose says he also sells birth control pills, but there are far fewer buyers for them. According to him, there is a pharmacy in Tegucigalpa that is well known for selling pills illegally, and we confirm this by going there and buying them for 230 lempiras (about $9).
Last year, a UN task force estimated that between 51,000 and 82,000 unsafe abortions are performed in Honduras each year.
Jose admits his business is illegal and he has no medical training, but believes he is providing a service and his clients trust him. Sometimes, he says, they even ask to insert pills - you need to take two pills orally and insert two vaginally, and women prefer that someone knows exactly how to do this and ask him for a favor.
He also supplies clients with rehydration salts to help recover from bleeding.
Women are often brought to Hospital Escuela in Tegucigalpa, Honduras's largest hospital, with complications from clandestine abortions from pills sold to them by Jose and other black market dealers.
Every week, about 60 women are treated here for pregnancy loss caused by either induced abortion or miscarriage - the hospital does not keep separate records.
Many 15-17 year old girls come here to take pregnancy tests. Honduras has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Central America, nearly double the global average, according to 2020 UN data.
Doctors admit that this is very depressing for them, since they cannot help women with unwanted pregnancies, even if the pregnancy threatens the health of the mother.
Ginna Rosales of the youth support group Youth Action believes that many of these pregnancies - and sometimes risky abortions - are due to poor sex education and the prevalence of gender-based violence.
"If a woman has an abortion in Honduras, it's not her fault, it's the state's fault, because it doesn't provide opportunities to prevent such situations," she says.
Rosales, she said, understands that in a country where 43% of residents consider themselves evangelical Christians and 38% are Catholics, there is serious opposition to abortion. But the pill, accepted by the World Health Organization as a form of contraception, should be less controversial, she said.
Young activists from the online group Generation Celeste, which describes itself as a pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom Honduran movement, disagree.
Jorge, whom we meet in a cafe along with his colleague Alma, is sure that the “morning pill” is essentially an early abortion, since it works in three ways, of which two are contraceptive, and the third prevents the implantation of an already fertilized egg into the wall of the uterus.
"Abortion is not a right," Alma adds. "It goes against the most important fundamental right - the right to life."
In November 2021, Honduras held its first democratic elections since a military coup in 2009. They were won by Xiomara Castro, who became the first female president of Honduras, promising to legalize abortion in certain cases, including rape and threat to the life of the mother.
And also make birth control pills legally available to all women.
She promised to do it within 100 days after taking office in January this year.
But women's rights groups told the BBC that while they had been invited to talks with the president, there was no sign yet of changes to abortion laws.
The promised change regarding “morning pills” was also not fulfilled.
On December 6, the Honduran Ministry of Health announced that for the first time since the 2009 coup, the pills would become legal again, but only in cases of rape and must be prescribed by a doctor in a hospital.
Tess Hewitt of Doctors Without Borders in Honduras nevertheless called it "an important step in ensuring access to life-saving and emergency care for thousands of women in Honduras," but added that it should not be limited to victims of sexual violence.
“The immediate next steps must be to ensure that emergency contraceptive pills are available to everyone who needs them,” Hewitt added.
President Xiomara Castro declined to be interviewed by the BBC, but her government's health minister, Dr José Manuel Mateu, agreed to speak to us.
"We are not going to promote the morning-after pill as contraception to avoid sexual debauchery," he said. "I am using the exact words. We will only allow the morning-after pill for rape victims. Those who engage in sex irresponsibly, let them reap the consequences." .
Women like Laura, who became pregnant through consensual sex but would struggle to care for the baby alone, are not entitled to the morning-after pill.
She says she understands the risks of taking the pill she bought from Jose.
“They say that (illegal) abortion is three times more painful than a normal birth,” the girl says with a shiver. “I can’t be sure that I won’t die, but I have no other choice. I know that abortion is illegal, but if I have an opportunity, I will take advantage of it."
