User tiarafate, who posted on the forum on August 12, , got accidentally pregnant with her boyfriend. Desperate to terminate her then two-month pregnancy, her boyfriend searched online and bought medicines advertised as abortifacients for P2, She bled for two weeks straight after taking the pills. But after the abortion process was supposedly over, her menstrual period never came. Tiarafate found out she was still pregnant months later, when she was almost 5 months along.
Frantic, she searched online and stumbled upon the group of doctors. After undergoing the necessary steps and being approved for an abortion, tiarafate and her boyfriend received a list of things to buy from the drug store for the procedure things like sterile gloves, cotton, alcohol, betadine, adult diaper, etc , a timetable for her fasting and medicine intake, and a list of hotels to choose from where they could check-in for the procedure.
They were told the doctor would come at 2 am. We opened the door and they asked us if I am my name ," she wrote.
He also asked us to ask questions. They cleaned themselves and prepared the procedure. Tiarafate and her boyfriend stayed in the hotel for a total of 3 days, and was visited by the doctor and a nurse 3 times.
Her abortion was successful. To the nurse who gave her time to comfort me. User Room also posted her experience in the forum on June 21, , explaining she and her husband decided on an abortion since they already had 3 children, aged between years old. They have extensive data requests and had plenty of locations to choose from as to where you can check in.
But girls! It is your lives on the line. Abortion is a very risky procedure. She said she had a successful medical procedure and a uterine irrigation afterwards, as well as a nurse who guided her throughout the process.
They are there to help. But they just need these for medical history and health. I thought it was too good to be true. Aside from some complaints of physical pain during the procedure, and the emotional trauma after the abortion — all of which can't be prevented even by medical doctors — Rappler found no negative reviews about the group of doctors. Data collected by Rappler from the forum also shows that when safe abortion options are available, women will indeed choose them over riskier options.
As of July 27, , women availed of an abortion with the group of doctors since , compared to backstreet abortionists like Miss Julie, who did procedures, and Miss Shine who did Miss Julie only had recorded abortions from onwards.
The real numbers are of course greater — since these numbers count only those who left comments on the forum — but the data paints a picture of what women seek and ultimately choose. Watch the video of this young woman who had two abortions, and who spoke to Rappler about how different her experience was when she got an unsafe abortion versus having a safe medical abortion:. Yet while there is demand for safe abortion options in the Philippines, it is unlikely that an abortion bill will be passed anytime soon.
Many, if not majority, of Filipinos themselves are anti-abortion as well. This, despite studies showing that banning abortion does not deter women from seeking it , and that abortions are safe in countries where they are legal, but dangerous in countries where they are banned and performed underground. He never went to medical school. So God is an abortionist. But the group also provides a more medical reason to explain why they do what they do.
Minda, a hilot or traditional midwife, demonstrates the massage technique she uses to help women abort their pregnancies in the slums of northern Manila August 22, The backstreet abortions performed by healers like Minda may become more common as a United States government aid program plans to stop distributing contraceptives in the Philippines in The year-old grandmother has lost count of the number of pregnancies she has terminated in this largely Roman Catholic country where abortion is illegal and strictly taboo, but where about half a million women end their pregnancies every year.
This will leave birth control up to the government which under the influence of Catholic bishops advocates unreliable natural birth control methods rather than the pill and condoms. Most women who seek abortions are like Remy, married with several children and too poor to afford another baby. The procedure, which can also involve pounding the lower abdomen to trigger a miscarriage, is called a massage. Remy bled for a week after her session with the hilot, passing out with the pain. Before her abortion, Remy had no access to artificial family planning.
Under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a devout Catholic who relies on the support of politically powerful bishops, the central government promotes natural family planning methods such as abstinence when the woman is ovulating.
Poor people, who make up the majority of the population, rely largely on the U. But USAID has started phasing out supplies and plans to end the rest of its donation program in Catholic clerics in the Philippines urge their congregations to use natural family methods rather than the contraceptive pill. But black-market pills, even with these liabilities, may still be the safest option.
In the Philippines, where the procedure is unregulated, abortifacients have fewer risks compared to back-alley abortions that may cause life-threatening infections or damage to vital organs — though those continue to take place. Melgar told Rest of World. Medical abortions have become increasingly popular globally. As the Covid pandemic has strained healthcare infrastructure around the world, many women have turned to telemedicine abortions.
In April alone, Women on Web received 16, emails requesting abortion pills by mail, over 1, more than the organization received in February, according to Handayani. Even as many major urban areas of the Philippines went into strict lockdowns in an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, abortion sellers have continued to advertise on social media, assuring customers that their pills can still be delivered.
Rest of World reached out to Facebook and Twitter to ask if they were aware of the pills being sold on their platforms. The Philippines currently does not have a law that allows the government to regulate social platforms. But breaking an existing law while using a social platform could lead to additional charges and a longer sentence if a seller or buyer were ever convicted of a crime, according to V.
Johann Espiritu, a lawyer who specializes in technology and new media. Nor will it erase the stigma of terminating a pregnancy. More than six months after her abortion, Angela has only spoken about the experience to three people other than Francisco.
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By Vittoria Elliott. Together, they decided that Angela would have an abortion. Fifty percent of Facebook Messenger's total voice traffic comes from Cambodia. Here's why. Keyboards weren't designed for Khmer. So Cambodians have just decided to ignore them.
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