A History of Abortion Undergrounds—and a Guide to Starting One
Here’s what one interaction, quoted in Vessel, a documentary about Women on Waves and Women on Web, looks like:
MAY 27, 7:20PM
Dear Women on Web,
I retrieved the pills from the post in Nairobi yesterday–
I kissed the medicine when it fell into my hands.
I am in the hotel and have just taken the second medicine now…
MAY 27, 8:35PM
Dear Emma,
How are you doing now?
Has the process started?
MAY 27, 8:55PM
My stomach aches, really bad, it is really painful…
Is this normal?
MAY 27, 9:16PM
Cramping is normal, it means the misoprostol pushing the pregnancy out.
You can take Ibuprofen for the pain.
MAY 28, 12:17AM
This by far is the loneliest I have been.
I am not a monster,
I just cannot have the baby.
MAY 28, 12:29AM
Emma,
You are not a monster for wanting an abortion.
1 in 3 women worldwide will have an abortion in her lifetime and we are not monsters!
You are being so incredibly strong and even if you feel alone you are taking good care of yourself.
That is something to be very proud of.
MAY 28, 10:33AM
Good morning. It was a long 15 hours but I feel ok now. I will go for an ultrasound to confirm. I am overwhelmed by your kindness. I thought it would be some automated reply, and instead there was a real human being there, who wanted to help me.
May I know your name? Just to keep you in my prayers?
MAY 28, 11:30AM
Thank you for your kind words, Emma.
We cannot tell you the name of the woman who was with you as we are a collective and many of us have been working last night.
We are always here if you ever want to write us again.
Hugs, Women on Web
One of the great developments in twenty-first-century feminism is that the global south has become the global inspiration for what’s possible, providing the developed countries of the global north—most notably, the United States—with strategies, protocols, resources, and support. Around 2017, a wave of anger against high rates of gender violence swept across Latin America, the so-called green tide, named for the signature green bandannas activists wore. A mass mobilization, termed Ni Una Menos (“not one less”), spread from Argentina across the region, through Central America and into Puerto Rico. Among many other gains, the movement forced through the legalization or decriminalization of abortion in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.
As the world expanded for women across Latin America, it contracted for women in the United States, who were headed down the tunnel of increasing abortion criminalization. One of the strengths of Grant’s book is that she follows activists in both Mexico and the United States through the 2010s and into the 2020s, making the disparity painfully clear. In the same year that Ni Una Menos exploded, two American reproductive health workers, stunned by the ease of getting over-the-counter medication abortion at an Ethiopian pharmacy, launched Plan C, a nonprofit website guiding pregnant people in each U.S. state through the complex and changing route to access. A few years later, Women on Web launched a U.S.-focused service, Aid Access, to do the same. Existing abortion activist groups, like the irreverent Shout Your Abortion, based in Seattle, began sharing resources in English and Spanish for people to self-manage their own abortions.
