Between 1999 and 2011, 17 Salvadoran women were sentenced to up to 40 years in prison after experiencing miscarriages, which were shockingly classified as aggravated homicide.

This episode unpacks that outrageous reality, raising questions about how miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) can even be treated as crimes and why the government chose to prosecute rather than protect these women in a healthcare crisis. We speak with Lina Lopez, an abortion activist with Abortiondata.org and Viva Futura who shares her insights from her experiences as an abortion doula in Colombia, a country that has faced significant restrictions on abortion rights.

The goal? To shed light on the stigma surrounding abortion and advocate for a narrative that places women's health and autonomy front and center.

Check out the shownotes for resources and more!

Takeaways:

• In El Salvador, the shocking reality is that women can face homicide charges for miscarriages, which raises serious questions about healthcare and justice.
• Abortion stigma is a global issue, deeply rooted in societal views of womanhood and autonomy over one's body, and it's time to challenge these norms.
• Data shows that legal restrictions on abortion do not prevent the procedure but rather lead to unsafe practices that endanger women's lives.
• Conversations about abortion should be grounded in empathy and respect for individual experiences, emphasizing that every story matters in this discourse.

Links referenced in this episode:

• abortiondata.org
• reproductiverights.org
• podcaston.org
• plannedparenthood.org

This episode is done in partnership with Podcasthon, a global charity movement focused on raising awareness for the charities and nonprofits that we love through the voices of podcasters all around the world. This week, and this week only from March 15 to 21st, over 1600 podcasters from around the world are dedicating one episode to a cause that they care deeply about.

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Email me at hetal@globalhealthpursuit.com

These women were charged with aggravated homicides.

Yeah, you heard that right.

Aggravated homicide.

If you haven't heard this case, this may be shocking to you because one, how could you prevent a miscarriage from happening in the first place?

Two, how and why would this be seen as a homicide?

And three, why did the Salvadorian government prosecute and not protect these women through what seemingly was a healthcare matter?

Welcome to another episode of the Global Health Pursuit podcast.

The podcast where we explore the world's most pressing health challenges through a beginner's lens.

My name is Hebdal Bahman.

I'm a biomedical engineer turned social impact podcaster and I'm your host.

Today we're talking about abortion.

It's a conversation about abortion through the stories of women in countries where laws have oppressed their rights and even criminalized them.

It's a conversation about data and how we could use data to destigmatize the narrative around abortion by improving access to reliable global information and presenting it as a public health and social justice issue.

Notice how I didn't mention the word political because I really don't think it's a political issue, do you?

The criminalization of abortion has been put into law in countries around the world where even spontaneous miscarriages are seen as abortions.

The case of the 17 Salvadoran women is just an example.

Our guest today is someone who spent so much of her life in Colombia, a country that was once one of the very few countries where abortion was totally banned.

And through her experiences as an abortion doula, yep, that job exists.

She realized just how stigmatized abortion is around the world.

I want to start this conversation by talking about the definition of abortion stigma.

When I was taking a look through your report of Colombia's abortions laws and the stigma around it, there was one thing that really stood out to me and it was through a paper by Kumar, Hasini and Mitchell.

This is what they say.

They have proposed one of the most iconic definitions of abortion stigma and they define it as the negative attribute ascribed to women who seeked to terminate a pregnancy that marks them internally or externally as inferior to ideals of womanhood.

So I thought that was so interesting.

What are your thoughts around this definition and how would you define it?

I think that this definition is great because help us to understand better the discussions that we have nowadays regarding legal restrictions of abortion or not.

You're listening to Lena Lopez, a sociologist with a postdoctorate degree in Social Innovation and a joint Erasmus Mundus Masters in Women's and Gender Studies.

She's an abortion activist and director and founder of abortiondata.org and Viva Futura, a feminist and transnational organization dedicated to revolutionizing the delivery and accessibility of information regarding sexual health and non reproductive rights.

By connecting scholarly knowledge with feminism and activism, they empower individuals to become agents of change.

Lena has served as a multilingual abortion counselor and a partnerships coordinator for Latin America at Women First Digital.

Usually all those discussions are with with the debate between if we are defending life or not.

But then when you start checking really close and detailed all the arguments, they are not really defending life.

The restrictions of abortions increase maternal death, but also a new study in the US says that is also include newborn death but also decrease the quality of life.

So when you go like at those step backs and you check this definition of a stigma, you see that the real problem behind is women having autonomy over their bodies.

There is just something that I will just add to this definition that they retake this definition but they also add a layer of healthcare fears like all this part of people having in mind that abortion could be something super scary, but also that abortion procedures happen in pretty ugly dirty places.

And that's also a layer of stigma that I would add.

But I think mainly all the discussions that we have with abortion goes around this idea of women accepting with an abortion that have sex for fun, that they don't want always to be mom and also that they don't want always to take care of others over their own well being.

And these three things are completely challenging of what we learned traditionally that a woman is or how a woman behaves.

Growing up in Colombia.

What was your very first experience with the term abortion?

For those who don't know, Colombia is a country pretty Catholic traditional in that terms on that values.

In Latin America.

I was around 15, 14 years old I think.

So it was because Colombia at that point was one of the 4% of the countries that abortion was totally banned, totally prohibited in all cases.

And there was a case of a woman who needed a therapeutic abortion.

That means an abortion with your life is at risk or it's because of health reasons.

She had cancer and she could not get access to her treatment because when you get chemotherapy that can cause an abortion and when abortion is criminalized, you need this kind of treatment.

You cannot get access to it.

There was three organizations.

It was Women's Link, so La Mesa por Lavida de las Salute.

They were asking the court to change the law.

It was a lawyer called Monica Roa who represent the case to decriminalize abortion in three cases.

In case of sexual violence, risk of life of the pregnant person and enviability of the fetus up to the end of the pregnancy.

Day one.

We got the ruling C355 that it allows abortion on these three cases.

But when that happened, it was already too late for her now.

Now, according to the center for Reproductive Rights, even though this ruling was a big step forward for women's reproductive rights in Colombia, the inclusion of abortion as a crime in the penal code creates a stigma for both those who are seeking abortions and the healthcare providers who perform them.

Doctors were still scared to go to jail and therefore many Colombian women were unable to access safe abortion services even when they fell within the exceptions of the law.

So what do they do?

Well, they relied on clandestine abortions that would ultimately threaten their health, their lives and of course their dignity.

And it's not the first case that a state ruled something that is already too late in terms of abortion here.

Cancer was already in a stage four and she could not get access any longer to chemotherapy or anything.

She died.

She was also a mom of another daughter at that point.

For me, it's those cases that always is a concern regarding what is the pro life movement talking about.

Because when you say that you are pro life, it means that you are defending life.

And that means also that you should defend this case like this kind of treatment, like an abortion to save the life of people, to save the well being of people.

So it was super shocking for me because it was the first time that I just faced the reality that not always the state gonna protect your life.

You know, when you think about being pro life in this type of movement, you always think about pro life for the baby and not for the mom.

And that is so impactful what you said because it's like if you're pro life, you should be pro life.

Everyone, mom, baby, every, everyone involved.

I just know that if there are people listening, and I have a lot of people who listen to this podcast in the US and right now there is a huge divide of people who are pro life and then pro choice.

And it feels like you're walking on eggshells when you're talking to people about this, especially if you don't know where they stand.

What was your family's take on all of this that was happening in Colombia around this movement.

This is a really complex question because I feel like some things struck to you more than the other people around you.

Because for my mom at that point, of course she's super Catholic and still she is super Catholic.

So this topic is always like something that appealed to her a lot.

But also we have like a really rich discussion regarding that.

And at that point for her it was not making sense what was going on on the cart.

Because usually when people talk about abortion, they imagine this idea of like a teenager who wants to get an abortion.

And this is super stigmatized idea, first of all, because a teenager is if the person wants to interrupt the pregnancy, they should have the right to do it.

But then also they just have this really narrow image of what abortion means.

So for her was like why this woman cannot have access to a treatment that she needs, but in her mind would not be possible that an like an abortion restriction can have some relationship with these things.

And still when we talk about these kind of restrictions in country like El Salvador, Honduras for hair is always the same question.

But what happened if I need an abortion because I just get an accident?

Well, it's restricted.

The doctor can go to jail, so you're not going to get access to the abortion.

And it's still something that makes tons of noise in her mind that for her it's like just the pieces are just falling apart.

And sometimes I just hear her talking with her friends, they are against abortion and she's trying to explain these small things that they are super important when we talk about these restrictions.

And that's also the reason why it's so important understand that abortion is a healthcare matter.

Because when we just see it as a political discussion between.

I agree, I disagree.

We just really lost the possibility to see all the real aspects of all the fact that involved abortion in terms of health care, in terms of health.

And all the many times that abortion is just a healthcare procedure that we needed.

Could be physical reason, mental reason, economical reason, or social reason.

But sometimes all this stigma really don't let people to see the big picture of what abortion is.

And sometimes even this news people really cannot make the real match.

It just make noise.

Sometimes it seems like social media, the news and the media in general will portray issues like abortion in a way that is divisive and political.

When in reality, I think that what she's trying to say is we really need to distill the information of what an abortion is and how it affects A woman in her body.

How can we remove the noise and see it for what it truly is without putting a political affiliation or a label on it?

And because we're mentioning politics here, I was curious and wanted to know when abortion even became a political issue, at least in the United States.

According to an NPR article by Deepa Shivaram, abortion wasn't always as politically charged as it is today.

Even after the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v.

For a long time this was something that appealed to candidates, Catholic voters.

Of course now, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe V.

You lead an organization called abortiondata.org and I think the work that you're doing is so is so important because it's not just a US problem, but it's a problem all over the world.

When I was scrolling on your website, there was a chart that showed country classifications by income level and abortion rates.

And it showed that the most unintended pregnancies occurred in low income countries and the most unintended pregnancies that ended in abortion was in middle income countries.

And it's so interesting because the difference was like 66% in middle income countries versus 40% in low income countries.

What would you say when you look at that data?

How would you interpret that?

This study is super interesting and has some limitations because it's just based on unintended pregnancies and not all abortions happen on unintended prognosis.

But it's super interesting because the study has like this relationship that present like most of the unintended pregnancy happens in low income countries and that's for the first analysis that you can do can be the result of the lack of access to sexual and reproductive care services.

But that also includes things like lack of infrastructure in the country.

So for example those countries like Colombia, that even we are not in the low income country, we have this kind of characteristics sometimes.

Like there are some areas that you need to travel hours to get to the closest healthcare service.

I live in Pennsylvania and according to the center for Reproductive Rights, the state of abortion law's constitution and court decisions on abortion has been noted as hostile here.

Yeah, that doesn't sound too Friendly.

I guess at least it's one step up from being illegal.

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe, abortion will likely remain accessible in Pennsylvania, but without legal protection.

Our current governor, Josh Shapiro, is supportive of abortion rights, but numerous medically unnecessary restrictions make it really difficult to access abortion care in my state.

But here's the thing.

From where I live, which is outside of Philadelphia, if I drive about an hour east, I cross into New Jersey where abortion will remain legal.

And the state's highest court recognized the, quote, fundamental right of a woman to control her body and destiny under the New Jersey constit.

But here's the deal.

Imagine living in San Antonio, Texas, where the nearest state where abortion rights are protected is Kansas.

Guess how long of a road trip that is?

Yeah, almost 12 hours.

That does not sound like fun, especially if you're in need of urgent care.

If you're in the United States, you can learn more about abortion laws in your state by going to reproductiverights.org maps.

It'll be linked in the show notes as well.

But when we zoom out and look at the world, let's try to understand why unintended pregnancies seem to be higher in low income countries as opposed to higher income countries.

You can understand that the unintended pregnancy are higher in those low income countries because access to all of these like ad, education, the health care set, contraception, so on is difficult.

But then when you go again to the same point in the low income countries, the lack also of these healthcare services also decrease the possibility of people accessing safe abortion.

So we are having more people continue pregnancies that they don't want because of the lack of healthcare services.

Think that then in middle income countries will be better, they will have more access to it.

But they also have like this background of not having enough resources for contraception, education and all those conditions that could decrease in unintended pregnancy.

And when you have comprehensive sex and reproductive education also to reduce unintended pregnancy, but at the same time to reduce the number of abortions that are result of lack of economic sources or social environment.

Also because you reduce as well sexual violence, that is another factor for abortion.

When we had spoken last, you shared with me A story of 17 women in El Salvador who were imprisoned because of abortions.

Can you talk about the laws there as well as some of the laws in other countries?

I think when we talk about Latin America it's a really like the laws are super Diverse as we have countries where abortion is totally banned as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and then we have other countries when we have like one of the most liberal laws right now in abortion as Colombia, that abortion is discriminalized up to 24 weeks by request and then under the three grounds that I mentioned before like in case of sexual violence, risk of life of the pregnant person and enviability of the fetus up to the end of the pregnancy.

Then you also do have countries like Argentina that also decriminalized abortion up to 24 weeks.

Uruguay, Cuba and Mexico that they have decriminalized abortion by national way, but they are as the US so they have like a lost by state that regulate in which state you can have access to abortion and under which conditions.

But then of course you have countries when the restrictions are make difficult the life of the people who live there.

In the world map of countries where abortiondata.org has gathered information from, you can see countries that are labeled with different colors.

The red labeled countries is where abortion is very restricted and green labeled countries are the most liberal when it comes to abortion.

And if you're listening and not watching this episode on Spotify or YouTube, you can head to the link in Show Notes to explore that as well.

If we click on Bolivia, we learn that abortion is allowed under certain circumstances, such as the risk to the life or health of the pregnant person, rape, incest and severe fetal malformations.

However, there are barriers that hinder access to legal abortions, including social stigma, lack of information and the availability of healthcare services.

As Leena has mentioned.

When we click on a green country like Nepal, we see that they take a liberal legal stance while addressing abortion.

There are countries that float in the middle, like Brazil, where there are only three legal instances of abortion.

These include rape, imminent danger to the pregnant person and a severe birth defect.

One out of five Brazilian women have undergone at least one abortion by the age of 40 and their induced abortion is still regulated as a crime, with penalties of one to three years of imprisonment for the pregnant woman and even one to four years of imprisonment for the doctor or any other person who was involved in the abortion procedure.

Imagine being the doctor in this situation.

I wouldn't want to practice there.

But this keeps bringing me back to the case of the 17 women in El Salvador.

So we have the case of El Salvador, as you mentioned before, in El Salvador there is this movement that it was called the 17 women were in prison because they had miscarriages, as they are called in English, in Spanish, we don't have a difference for miscarriage and abortion.

Really?

Yeah.

So if you lose the baby, then it's still called an abortion.

It's interesting because at the end when you talk about medical terms is the same procedure.

So in a country that abortion is restricted.

If you go to the doctor because you are having a miscarriage, the doctor cannot determine physically talking if you have a miscarriage of an abortion.

And if the person is afraid to go to prison or is afraid of the person, have some stigmas that let this doctor think that you induce the abortion, they can police and you can end up criminalized medically talking a spontaneous abortion, like a miscarriage, an aversion works the same.

Can we just take a moment to reflect on this?

In Spanish, there is no word for the term miscarriage.

Honestly, I'm kind of mind blown by this.

So those women, they were put in prison under the crime of homicides.

They were charged with homicide, yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Because actually one of the stories that for me is super hard, it was a woman who was expecting to finish like her week of work so she could go to the maternal leave.

And when she finished, she started feeling bad.

And she mentioned that she was feeling bad and no one at her workplace help her.

She was living there at one school, she was like a cleaning service person or something.

And she was living at the school.

And then no one offered to take her to the hospital or anything.

And when she tried to go to the hospital, already was too late.

She lost the pregnancy.

And it was an intended pregnancy.

She wanted to have this pregnancy and she ended up in prison.

So all those cases also make us to reflect on what are the consequences of these restrictions.

Also there is another case super similar to that one in Colombia that happened in Salvador to a woman called Beatrice.

Beatrice was a woman who had like some healthcare complications during her pregnancy.

And she asked the state of El Salvador to let her do the abortion.

And they denied to the possibility to do this procedure at the beginning.

So then she was like in this continued fight at the end, she was able to access to the abortion, but it was already too late.

And like her whole health was already impacted.

And she died some time after for a respiratory disease that it was not really meant to die for it.

So all these restrictions really take you to these things that we were discussing before, when we talk about abortion, we talk about healthcare topic that many things can happen and these restrictions that they are just debating a political space, they really don't match with what is the health care reality.

And also these restrictions affect the people who can have access to abortion, who need the abortion, like the abortion seekers, but also persons who want to get pregnant.

Because if you don't have access to an abortion and something goes wrong during the pregnancy, your life can be at risk and then also affect the life of the newborn.

Because as is happening now in the US As I mentioned before, there's a study that proved that now in the U.S.

since the new restrictions, the number of deaths of newborns have increased.

And one of the reasons that the doctors are giving is because many of those pregnancies were not mean to finish differences that some complications and then they are just continue pregnant.

Like you just have to continue being pregnant knowing that the fetus is not viable.

That's torture.

It's affecting also health care providers.

Because the health care providers are in the first line seeing how the promise that they're going to take care the life of their patients and they are seeing how their practices because of legal reasons are just causing pain and they are not able to really protect their lives in the whole terms of life.

Like talking about dignity.

Yeah, like a full well being as a full definition of health by the World Health Organization.

That is like the completely well being of the person, not just being alive.

Those stories are complicated.

Also we have countries like Brazil in Latin America that have also high restrictions.

In Brazil there are stories of women who need to travel abroad the country like go to Colombia, Argentina to get access to an abortion.

The same as is happening now in US and we are talking about someone who had can take care of their kids at home.

So you really need to figure it out with who you're going to leave your kids.

People who maybe it's the first time that they're going to be abroad of their country and they have to do it for an abortion because they cannot get access to the healthcare service that they need in their country and they need to go to another country to get access to it.

And then also we need to talk about the economical weight of that.

Not everyone has the money to go to another country to get access to a health care procedure.

So at the end these restrictions also are increasing the inequality of access to healthcare service, to access to the right of health.

When you saw the chart of the income countries and abortion decrease, there is also another chart that shows how the legal restrictions do not reduce the number of abortions.

What the legal restrictions really do, they reduce the number of safe abortions.

So then is the people who can pay for it, who can have access to safe abortions, and then those who cannot pay for it will have the abortion if they need it, but under unsafe conditions.

And that also increase the amount of money that the government, they're gonna pay in post abortion complications.

What keeps coming back to me is like, you know, it's not just about the baby, but you're also talking about maternal mortality, right?

So when you speak to people who are against abortion, like how do you have a constructive conversation with people who believe a different thing?

It's based on like three principles, I would say.

First, I try to base all the conversations in data.

Not for reducing the stories of the people, just with numbers, but to prove that we are not talking about like some weird story that just you saw in news, but something that's happening a lot in many women.

Second, under a base of human rights, this is a health right.

Because for me that makes sense, but not for everyone.

This makes sense.

If I ask you make a picture of what is a human right, it's difficult, but what is really the picture of that is, well, being life that is worth living.

So I tried to put this in terms of what is a life worth living and then in terms of empathy.

Because when people get super emotional against abortion, they have their reasons, they have the stories that not many times are based on evidence or many times are based on fears and myths.

So I think it's also embrace those fears, let them to put their fears there, and then also present your case.

And my case, for example, is not convince everyone to become pro choice if they don't want.

But my case is that everyone can have a constructive conversation regarding abortion.

For me, the problem is not that a person is against abortion.

For me, the problem is these people are using arguments that can harm everyone who is listening to them.

So when they call a person who needs an abortion a killer, when they stigmatize women and people who make abortion seekers, when you stigmatize healthcare providers, they are really harming someone.

So for me, they hope you can be against an abortion using data and having a debate with real arguments.

And that also take me to a point that is I don't expect that they change their opinion immediately.

I just expect that they just come back to talk with me later.

And I think that's a healthy way to go about it.

If you've thought this way for your whole life.

There's you're not going to change your opinion overnight.

It's a process.

Why focus so much on the data?

Because that is really like your organization.

It's all about data.

When you first wanted to found this organization, where you're like, I want to do the research and post it online for everybody to see, was that the whole goal from the very beginning?

This question has like two parts of the answers.

I wanted to focus more on the lack of data because the lack of data is super political, because it shows what people is not counting, is not existing.

So we don't count safe abortions.

People think that safe abortions did not exist.

And then we have tons of studies on safe abortions that are super important to provide advocacy.

And I was feeling okay, but we also need studies or we need spaces that people can go and read about all the stories that go well.

And that's.

It was a need, like a personal need.

For me, data becomes for me this place to tell them you are not alone.

Like, I don't know, one out of three unintended pregnancy end up in abortion.

So it's show people that you are not alone.

It's normal to have more than one abortion.

It happens, but people don't talk about it.

So for me, this become a place that people could see that they could survive.

Because as we don't talk about safe abortion stories enough, people usually think that they don't know anyone who have an abortion.

And they think that the reason because they don't know anyone is because people die for abortions.

And that's no, it's because all of us, we know people who have abortions, but they don't feel safe telling us.

So data for me become like a this space that we could have this discussion.

Counting abortions is super complicated because of the legal restrictions, because of the stigma.

Safe.

And actually the World Health Organization recognized that as a safe method, like mifepristone and misoprostol.

But also is safe in terms that you don't face a stigma.

So you don't need to go to a place that someone gonna say something.

If you live in a small town, no one gonna know that you did abortion at home.

But that also makes more difficult to count safe abortions.

Lena just referred to a drug called misoprostol.

And if you don't know what that is, it's a synthetic prostaglandin.

And if you don't know what that is.

Prostaglandins are a group of hormone like lipids that play an important role in regulating bodily functions like inflammation and pain.

In terms of abortion, using misoprostol causes cervical softening, dilation and uterine contractions.

It's an option for management of early pregnancy failure and incomplete abortion.

According to planned parenthood.org, it causes cramping and bleeding that then empties your uterus.

Essentially, it feels like having an early miscarriage or a really, really heavy period.

So when we started project, it was a complete challenge and we decided abortion data is a data project in terms of we count official data, we take sources from the official data, but we also contact organizations that support abortion seekers and we ask them, if they are public, to share with us the data that they have.

So on.

This is like accounting apples with peers, but at the same time it's no, because our goal is not having like the real number of abortions, because we already know that it's super complicated.

But we want to give up people, the landscape of what's happening for an abortion seekers, for different abortion seekers, and what are the options and to show that safe abortion exists.

So that for us was like a place of advocacy.

Also, we know that talk about data is not enough, because even if we try to have a feminist approach to data that recognize every number as a part of a story of someone, many times people feel like data is too dehumanized.

So we also try to rely on stories of people because the data itself sometimes just get to just numbers.

And these numbers at the end, they are just another way to tell stories.

For us, those numbers are collective stories or many people who just have similar experiences.

And we are just trying to show that there are many of them.

Like I always say, one out of seven is like one person who maybe is me, who maybe is you, who maybe is a mom, a person who has a completely life story like she was a kid, she has dreams.

And that's something that we also try to put also with the data, like give some context.

I wanted to take a moment to tell you about our partner for today's episode.

Podcasthon Podcast THON is a global charity movement focused on raising awareness for the charities and the nonprofits that we love through the voices of podcasters all around the world.

For this year's podcast on I'm featuring Lena's story and nonprofit abortiondata.org and Viva Futura because I believe women's rights and abortion are a social justice issue.

Go to podcaston.org to discover other podcasters featuring charities that they love.

Find the link in the show Notes have you heard some stories like in the recent past of abortions that women have gotten that have changed their life.

In terms of that?

I'm a former abortion doula and once I read a letter of someone who said, today is my graduation day, I can be here because I could take that decision.

And now I'm just getting my degree.

And for me it's so powerful because for me, abortion is also like decide to have an abortion.

It's not just because your life is at risk, because you are at risk, but also because you loved yourself and you can put yourself first and your need first.

And then in the future maybe you can decide to have a kid, but under other conditions when you feel like it's consent and makes sense with your life.

That story really touched me.

But the story that touched me a lot was a woman, an old woman who approached me telling me about her abortion.

And she was super mad at the beginning, like talking about abortions, why this?

And then I was just like trying to explain her and let her to talk.

And then she said, I had an abortion when I was younger and it's the first time that I can talk about it.

And for me it was so strong because immediately she finished the sentence, she started crying.

And when we talk about restrictions, well, we talk about all those stories that have like a impact on physical health but also have impact on mental health.

And here I'm talking about legal restrictions, but also stigma and social restrictions.

We talk about it because one of the things that really can be complicated regarding an abortion is the stigma that surrounds experience.

So people feel isolated, they feel alone.

The thing that I said before regarding the numbers is also to show that you are not alone.

Well, many abortion seekers, many people who had an abortion, they feel alone after that experience, right?

And for me, it's so hard to think that you need to go to a healthcare procedure in secret when usually we feel so vulnerable when we need to do any kind of healthcare procedure.

I'm not just talking about abortion, I'm talking about any kind of healthcare procedure.

And we want to go with someone that we can trust.

So for me, that story was really shocking.

And just the fact that she keep in secret her abortion for like 40.

Years in the US approximately one in four women will have an abortion by age 45.

Someone you know might have had one and they may not have had the courage to tell their story.

Maybe that someone is you.

Lena and the team at abortiondata.org understands how complex and nuanced and emotionally charged this topic is.

@abortiondata.org you can tell your abortion story anonymously.

Everything will be processed by a form that is focused on privacy and security and it won't ask for your name or any other sensitive information, just the story.

If you feel inclined to share, click the link in the show notes that states share your story.

And as we close out this conversation, I had to ask how we as listeners and learners can support her work.

This is what she said.

The first way to support me and support us is really always understand ourselves as abortion communicators.

Like always when we talk about abortion, like get a commitment to always that you talk about abortion.

Talk with empathy and the responsibility that someone who is listening to you maybe had that experience.

And that's for me is huge because that creates a different environment for all of us.

A more friendly society.

We also work on volunteer basis and donation basis so you can go to the website and donate to our work.

You can donate monthly, you can do one time donation and like all donations are really welcome.

As you mentioned before, we try to make like a really strong research on that and that requires time, resources.

That's another way to support.

If you follow us in our social media, Instagram is the main channel that we use is at abortion data.

We also have a shop online.

So if you want to buy some products, especially if you are in the US that is easy to chip in, that helps us a lot and you get like a beautiful product, a feminist product.

If you want to volunteer on.

If you have like any company that you know that can support at work, any other organization that can support at work, or if you do similar work and you want to do a collaboration that's also super welcome.

So there are thousands of ways that we can receive support.

If you're still here and listening, know that I truly appreciate you and I really hope that you take a moment to check out Lena's work, maybe buy some of her merch or maybe donate to fuel more of her advocacy.

All of the resources will be linked in the show notes and if you resonate with anything that was said in this conversation, please comment below.

If you're watching or listening on YouTube or Spotify, if you're listening anywhere else, feel free to email me@hetallobalhealthpursuit.com this episode was researched, hosted, produced, edited, and all of the above by me.

And a huge shout out to my coach, Anna Xavier of the Podcast Space, who continues to push me to create a show that is meaningful, educational and entertaining all at the same time.

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I'll see you next week.