Burner phones, aliases and code words: The secret networks that women use to circumvent Honduras' abortion ban.
Inside a little wooden house among the pine and oak forests of western Honduras' coffee-growing mountains, a woman opened a tiny package of pills, delivered to a nearby town. She didn't know it, but the medication had more than likely entered the country hidden in an activist's suitcase, from Mexico.
Honduras has one of the world's strictest abortion bans, with a constitutional prohibition on terminating pregnancy in all cases, even rape. Neighboring El Salvador and Nicaragua have similar total bans. Until March, Honduras was the only country in the region that also banned emergency contraception, the so-called morning-after pill.
Youths carry pro-abortion and anti-violence messages during a march on International Women's Day in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Wednesday, March 8, 2023.
To reconstruct how the secretive networks operate, AP drove highways and dirt roads in crowded neighborhoods and indigenous villages, from export-focused assembly-plant regions to banana plantations. Other women learn about the networks via hushed word of mouth. Either way, women seeking abortion help are ultimately put in touch with the person who will be her guide, introduced via pseudonym.
Activists take advantage of every trip across the border, hiding the pills in suitcases. Then, packages pass carefully from hand to hand, delivered by taxi or via"drops" with a detailed time, place and description of the contact. A 2013 plaque that reads in Spanish"Virgin of Life. In memory of unborn babies," placed by the Pro-Life Committee, stands outside the Basilica Our Lady of Suyapa in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Monday, March 20, 2023. Honduras has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Latin America, more than double the world average, according to the U.N. Population Fund.A young lawyer discovered that her own mother was part of a network when she sought help to get an abortion.
She feared for her own life during her abortion, nearly four months into the pregnancy. She said a married man impregnated her and she wanted to take the pills earlier, but it took longer than expected to get them. Now, she said, she supports abortion only in cases of rape or danger to the health of the mother or fetus.
The hardest part, the guide said,"is when I have to give contraceptive counseling, because it's like telling them that it can happen again." Problems emerge when pills are found in the vagina, or there are incomplete abortions of women in advanced gestation. That's clear evidence of an abortion, and doctors are obligated by law to report it to authorities.
The constitutional protection is unique in Latin America, according to the International Center for Reproductive Rights. It was appealed twice to the Supreme Court and upheld. At Hospital Escuela, Cruz said she recognizes that some health professionals report women to avoid legal problems, but others do so because of religious convictions. Some quietly perform abortions at secretive clinics for those who can pay several hundred dollars.
Other women temporarily disappear from their communities and families while seeking a safe place to have an abortion. Or they land in a private clinic if there's an infection.
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