WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:04.080 Dear listener, It's Maria no Josa and before we start, 2 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:06.640 I want to give you a heads up because this 3 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:12.119 is not a regular Latino USA episode. Today representing the 4 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:16.079 first episode of the network, which is a new series 5 00:00:16.120 --> 00:00:19.480 that let You Know USA co produced with NPR's Embedded podcast. 6 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:20.479 Now. 7 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:23.959 This series is about something that is really relevant in 8 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:27.240 the United States right now, and that is abortion. But 9 00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:32.160 it's not the story you might be expecting. Our series 10 00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:36.120 follows women across the Americas who discovered a method to 11 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:42.440 have safe abortions without doctors in countries where abortion was 12 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:47.479 pretty much banned, and these women changed how people access 13 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:51.560 abortion not only in their countries but around the world, 14 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:55.920 including right here in the United States today. For over 15 00:00:56.040 --> 00:01:00.000 a year, Latin Know USA producers Victoria Estrada and Marta 16 00:01:00.080 --> 00:01:04.200 Martinez have been reporting on this story and now they're 17 00:01:04.240 --> 00:01:07.520 going to take us all over the Americas to follow 18 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:12.560 this movement made up of women's networks. Here now are 19 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:16.480 Martha and Victoria with the first episode of the network. 20 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:21.240 It was one of those moments when people understand their 21 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:24.039 witnessing history, they remember where they were. 22 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:28.040 I was standing at my standing desk in my house, 23 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:30.080 waiting and. 24 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:34.440 I just started crying at my desk. 25 00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:36.720 It was totally surreal. 26 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:40.640 They remember where they were when Roe versus Wade fell. 27 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:44.040 The biggest change to abortion rights in the United States 28 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:46.440 and nearly half a century is here. 29 00:01:48.160 --> 00:01:50.880 The Supreme Court had made its decision. 30 00:01:51.080 --> 00:01:55.760 Ruling that ends the constitutional right to an abortion. While 31 00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:59.840 abortion rights opponents celebrated the news that Rowe had been overturned, 32 00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:07.000 many abortion rights supporters feared the US was going backwards, 33 00:02:07.320 --> 00:02:08.880 back to the nineteen hundred. 34 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:11.400 It's like, what are they going to take from us next? 35 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:13.840 Back to a more dangerous time. 36 00:02:14.200 --> 00:02:17.120 This is an emergency, This is an extreme crisis. 37 00:02:17.320 --> 00:02:19.040 People will die across the country. 38 00:02:20.320 --> 00:02:23.720 Protesters gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, 39 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:29.400 d c. Holding images of code hangers over their heads 40 00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:32.680 right by by. 41 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.480 The day after the fall of Row, thirteen states immediately 42 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:39.800 banned or severely limited abortion. Eventually nearly half of old 43 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:43.320 states did, and within a month of the ruling, dozens 44 00:02:43.320 --> 00:02:47.880 of clinics stopped performing abortions, forcing many Americans to trouble 45 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:52.760 hundreds of miles to get one. Other laws targeted abortion providers. 46 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:53.760 Are you scared? 47 00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:55.960 I am scared, and I think a lot of us 48 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:59.720 are because there's nowhere else in medicine that is policed 49 00:03:00.040 --> 00:03:09.400 and regulated and now criminalized to such a degree. 50 00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:17.359 But not all abortion rights supporters felt this way. 51 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:20.240 Everybody was so calm in the network. 52 00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:23.840 The network, it's what we're calling the diffuse set of 53 00:03:23.880 --> 00:03:27.680 people who are expanding abortion access in an unconventional way. 54 00:03:28.440 --> 00:03:29.800 They were not panicking. 55 00:03:30.160 --> 00:03:32.400 Everybody was like, we've been doing this work, We're going 56 00:03:32.480 --> 00:03:33.760 to continue doing this work. 57 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:35.800 Nothing is changing. Who cares. 58 00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:37.440 I'm actually energized. 59 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:45.640 This network it's hard to even describe because it's not 60 00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:51.240 formal or centralized. There's no ceo, no headquarters. 61 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:54.640 Some people work together, but plenty don't know each other. 62 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:58.120 They're midwives and nurses, grandmothers and friends. 63 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:02.760 This network cross borders and reaches people throughout the world, 64 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:07.200 from South Africa to Mian March to Mexico and all 65 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:11.560 over the United States. What unites the network is how 66 00:04:11.760 --> 00:04:15.680 they are expanding abortion access by helping women have safe 67 00:04:15.720 --> 00:04:19.240 abortions on their own without a doctor involved. 68 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:23.520 Their method grew out of a very small thing. It 69 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:25.240 actually fits in the palm of your hand. 70 00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:29.920 But despite being physically tiny, when it comes to reproactive health, 71 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:34.320 doctors researchers and people working in this field say it's 72 00:04:34.400 --> 00:04:38.960 been monumental, extraordinarily important. 73 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:40.960 It's a lifesaver in so many ways. 74 00:04:41.320 --> 00:04:44.640 Is the equivalent to the discovery of penicillin, because it's 75 00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:45.240 a before and. 76 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:52.760 After, But unlike penicillin, this discovery has not been universally embraced. Instead, 77 00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:56.520 it's the latest target of abortion restrictions that continue to 78 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:57.200 make the news. 79 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:00.479 The future of abortion access could be impacted by a 80 00:05:00.520 --> 00:05:03.040 new lawsuit just filed by the Attorney General of Texas. 81 00:05:03.240 --> 00:05:06.920 Long dormant federal law prohibits the nailing of any supplies 82 00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:08.200 used for abortions. 83 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:11.320 Possession could be punishable by up to five years in prison. 84 00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:21.919 From NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media's Latino Usa, This Is 85 00:05:21.960 --> 00:05:23.080 the Network. 86 00:05:22.839 --> 00:05:26.200 A series about the DIY method that tooks safe abortions 87 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:29.159 out of the clinic and the women who made it happen. 88 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:31.880 Episode one, Santo Tech. 89 00:05:35.440 --> 00:05:37.240 I'm Victoria Estrada. 90 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:41.320 And I'm Marta Martine. We're both producers at the public 91 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:45.360 radio show Latino USA. We've been covering reproductive rights in 92 00:05:45.400 --> 00:05:47.280 the Americas for years now. 93 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:49.880 And when we started to see more and more challenges 94 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:53.800 to abortion access in the US. We immediately thought about 95 00:05:53.839 --> 00:05:58.880 Latin America because historically Latin America has had strict abortion bands, 96 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:01.200 not so different from what we're seeing now in parts 97 00:06:01.200 --> 00:06:02.280 of the US. 98 00:06:02.520 --> 00:06:06.159 But as research from around the world shows, bands don't 99 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:09.960 stop people from getting abortions. They just lead them to 100 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.200 take more risks to end their pregnancies. That's where the 101 00:06:13.200 --> 00:06:17.040 phrase bacali abortion comes from and where we get the 102 00:06:17.080 --> 00:06:20.479 image of a woman using a code hanger self managing 103 00:06:20.520 --> 00:06:21.080 her abortion. 104 00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:25.480 But nearly forty years ago, in Latin America, women developed 105 00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:28.919 an abortion method that was medically safe and effective, no 106 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:32.359 doctor needed, and this new type of self managed abortion 107 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:35.960 transformed how abortions happened across the world today. 108 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:40.000 It all started in Brazil, where this method was born 109 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.279 in the late nineteen eighties. Victoria and I took a 110 00:06:43.320 --> 00:06:46.479 trip there last year in twenty twenty four, and one 111 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:50.440 of the people we interviewed was Jacqueline pe Tanki Hi. 112 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:51.240 Jacqueline. 113 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:55.479 Jacqueline is a longtime feminist advocate how was Your Day? 114 00:06:56.040 --> 00:07:00.200 And she lived through Brazil's military dictatorship, which lasted for 115 00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:04.000 more than two decades. When the dictatorship fell in nineteen 116 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:07.400 eighty five, she thought to get women's rights into Brazil's 117 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:11.400 new constitution, because women at the time had so little 118 00:07:11.440 --> 00:07:16.760 say in their workplaces, marriages, or over their bodies. 119 00:07:17.200 --> 00:07:18.800 So here in front. 120 00:07:18.640 --> 00:07:19.560 You have the Christ. 121 00:07:20.320 --> 00:07:22.400 Oh, it's here, right here. 122 00:07:22.600 --> 00:07:25.920 From Jacqueline's falcony in Rio de Janeiro, we could see 123 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:30.520 what's probably the most iconic image of Brazil, the statue 124 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.120 of Christ the Redeemer. So you see it every day 125 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:38.200 in the morning when you wake up, like hello and yeah, 126 00:07:38.200 --> 00:07:41.440 I say hello, Christ, how are you be good? 127 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:43.320 Be good, Jesus Christ. 128 00:07:44.360 --> 00:07:47.280 Maybe you've seen it in a movie or photos. It's 129 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:51.080 this huge sculpture overlooking the whole city of Rio de 130 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:54.840 Janeiro on top of this spectacular cliff. It's interesting because 131 00:07:54.880 --> 00:07:57.520 I was actually talking about this with Victoria this morning, 132 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:01.360 that religion is very resent in this city in a 133 00:08:01.480 --> 00:08:04.680 very visual way, because you have the Christ up there 134 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:08.239 in the mountain looking at you all from everywhere. 135 00:08:08.760 --> 00:08:11.840 Yeah, everywhere, everywhere. 136 00:08:15.080 --> 00:08:19.120 It's this constant reminder of the influenced Catholicism has had 137 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:21.000 on Brazil for much of its history. 138 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:26.560 For the careful of church contraception has always been a 139 00:08:26.760 --> 00:08:27.680 key issue. 140 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:32.080 Until the eighties, many Brazilian women didn't have great access 141 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:35.320 to birth control before then. In the Burhish region of 142 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:38.800 the country, women had an average almost six children. 143 00:08:39.880 --> 00:08:42.160 We heard that some women just didn't know much about 144 00:08:42.160 --> 00:08:45.679 their own bodies. For example, some women were afraid of 145 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:48.840 using tampons because they thought they might get lost inside 146 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:52.160 of their vaginas. We also heard that some women thought 147 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:54.920 that their vagina was connected to their mouth. 148 00:08:55.800 --> 00:08:59.280 This lack of knowledge had serious consequences. 149 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:06.720 Significant let's call punishment. It was on women's bodies, death 150 00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:14.880 or morbidity. 151 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:20.360 Okay, could you just count to ten whom doyce. 152 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:26.600 In the nineteen eighties, Brazil's maternal mortality rate was higher 153 00:09:26.640 --> 00:09:28.120 than most of the rest of the world. 154 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:32.800 UVV my, do we see you in Mohel? 155 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:36.560 I lived through a time when women got sick and died, 156 00:09:37.280 --> 00:09:42.920 died of infection, died of bleeding, young women, extremely young women. 157 00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:49.520 This is doctor Rivaldo Albuquerque so medicotetra. 158 00:09:50.280 --> 00:09:55.040 I am a gynecologist, I am a practicing Catholic and 159 00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:57.680 I have been working with women's health since I was 160 00:09:57.720 --> 00:09:58.840 a medical student. 161 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.080 I visited Rivaldo in the coastal city of Recife in 162 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:06.679 northeast Brazil. It's the poorest region in the country. When 163 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:09.480 he started working in a public hospital in nineteen eighty five, 164 00:10:09.800 --> 00:10:13.040 the state that Recife is in had the highest maternal 165 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:16.680 mortality rate in all of Brazil. Rivaldo saw it every 166 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:19.560 day in the emergency room, a lot of pregnant women 167 00:10:19.720 --> 00:10:22.439 coming into a r with complications from a lack of 168 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:27.679 prenatal care, like chronically high blood pressure, and also complications 169 00:10:27.679 --> 00:10:28.320 from abortion. 170 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:33.360 Abortion was and still is illegal in most cases in Brazil, 171 00:10:33.640 --> 00:10:36.280 and it was often seen as a sin, but that 172 00:10:36.280 --> 00:10:40.440 doesn't mean women were not getting abortions. Research from that 173 00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:44.280 time estimated there were between one and four million abortions 174 00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:46.160 happening in the country every year. 175 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:47.640 I spasushkity on. 176 00:10:47.800 --> 00:10:51.160 People who had the money could look for doctors who 177 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:56.319 did abortions in clinics in hospitals with every safety precaution, 178 00:10:57.040 --> 00:10:59.800 using sterilized materials. 179 00:11:00.920 --> 00:11:03.240 In other words, people who had the money could go 180 00:11:03.280 --> 00:11:05.640 see a doctor who was willing to break the law 181 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:10.400 for the right price. Those were not the women who 182 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:13.800 ended up in the emergency room where Rivaldo worked. His 183 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:17.319 patients had often gone to places that were less reputable 184 00:11:17.520 --> 00:11:18.319 and unsafe. 185 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:20.920 Others just tried to self manage their abortion. 186 00:11:21.520 --> 00:11:26.720 We heard about lots of ways, herbs, teas or drinks, 187 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:33.400 shahs beb in, session of foreign objects, the rods of 188 00:11:33.400 --> 00:11:38.840 an umbrella, needles, and whatever medicines they could buy at 189 00:11:38.880 --> 00:11:39.479 the pharmacy. 190 00:11:39.880 --> 00:11:42.680 You know all the horror stories that you read about. 191 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:47.640 By the time women got to Rivaldo, they often had 192 00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:51.800 perforations in their uterus, hemorrhages, and serious infections. 193 00:11:53.160 --> 00:11:56.280 Rivaldo told us about a specific case that has stayed 194 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:59.040 with him. It was a patient who was only a 195 00:11:59.080 --> 00:12:01.280 few years younger, and he was at the time. 196 00:12:01.400 --> 00:12:05.040 Romomili Diziandois Feelius. 197 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:08.920 She was a nineteen year old woman who had already 198 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:10.120 had two children. 199 00:12:10.840 --> 00:12:13.240 She came in with a generalized infection. 200 00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:17.480 It was a desperate condition and we didn't have any 201 00:12:17.559 --> 00:12:22.480 background information about this woman. She wouldn't speak, She was 202 00:12:22.520 --> 00:12:25.760 in no position to explain what had happened to her, 203 00:12:26.520 --> 00:12:29.680 and the person who brought her in didn't want to 204 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:30.319 talk either. 205 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:34.640 Rivaldo and the other doctors suspected she had an unsafe abortion, 206 00:12:35.040 --> 00:12:38.160 and so they decided to do an exploratory operation. 207 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:41.600 So that we could evaluate the abdomen what was happening 208 00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:45.920 with this infection. And when we opened the abdominal cavity, 209 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:51.040 we found the uterus that smelled part of the word rotten. 210 00:12:52.520 --> 00:12:54.559 Rivaldo still remembers it. 211 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:59.400 A terrible smell with several perforations. It was a classic 212 00:12:59.600 --> 00:13:05.359 picture of an unsafe abortion. Since it's an illegal procedure. 213 00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:09.239 The women must have stayed home for a few days 214 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:11.679 or didn't receive proper medication. 215 00:13:13.880 --> 00:13:15.800 Who knows how long she waited to go to the 216 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:20.760 hospital after signs that something was wrong, and now there 217 00:13:20.800 --> 00:13:22.080 was nothing the doctors could do. 218 00:13:22.880 --> 00:13:26.920 Why did this woman die? I can't tell you without hesitation. 219 00:13:27.640 --> 00:13:30.800 Because she was black and because she was poor. 220 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:37.720 Poqueraigre Rivaldo told us he really felt for these women. 221 00:13:38.520 --> 00:13:42.280 They are in a situation of suffering, of vulnerability. 222 00:13:43.400 --> 00:13:46.040 Their health and their life are at risk. 223 00:13:47.040 --> 00:13:53.080 I know these women, many are Christians, Evangelical, Catholic, but 224 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:55.800 they are going through a specific moment in their life. 225 00:13:56.480 --> 00:13:57.160 They are in need. 226 00:14:01.160 --> 00:14:05.400 But Rivaldo was an exception. Many doctors did not treat 227 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:06.360 these patients well. 228 00:14:06.880 --> 00:14:09.760 Women who had tried to have an abortion were the 229 00:14:09.880 --> 00:14:13.319 last ones to be treated during our shifts. 230 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:16.160 So these women they would be in the emergency room 231 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:19.840 all day long without food or anything to drink. 232 00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:25.680 They spent the whole day fasting waiting for their procedure 233 00:14:25.760 --> 00:14:30.080 on an empty stomach, and they are being punished because 234 00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:32.520 they were the last ones to be taken care of. 235 00:14:33.440 --> 00:14:37.080 He remembers that some doctors wouldn't give the women enough 236 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:42.480 anesthesia before their diletion and curtash or DNC, so the 237 00:14:42.520 --> 00:14:46.120 women would feel the pain of their cervix being dilated 238 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:49.600 and the walls of their urs being scraped. 239 00:14:49.920 --> 00:14:54.320 And the women cried out because of the pain of 240 00:14:54.400 --> 00:15:00.400 their suffering. Unfortunately, I heard medical staff say, when you 241 00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:03.120 did it, it was a lot of joy, a lot 242 00:15:03.160 --> 00:15:05.480 of pleasure, and now you're crying. 243 00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:09.680 You don't know what you did. You killed the baby. 244 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:18.840 One doctor told researchers at the time that his hospital 245 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:22.160 was doing two hysterectomies a week because of so many 246 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:27.480 botched abortions. Another doctor called working with these patients a 247 00:15:27.560 --> 00:15:31.840 quote revolting process because she was presenting us with a 248 00:15:31.920 --> 00:15:34.960 disgusting mess unquote. 249 00:15:35.400 --> 00:15:39.480 Some doctors went even further than insulting the women. In 250 00:15:39.560 --> 00:15:42.120 some cases they called the police. 251 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:44.480 And the police would come all the way to the 252 00:15:44.560 --> 00:15:46.680 hospital and handcuff the women. 253 00:15:47.560 --> 00:15:51.560 They would chain them to the bed. Women were arrested. 254 00:15:52.400 --> 00:15:56.280 Rivaldo says his hospital never let this happen, but he 255 00:15:56.360 --> 00:15:58.320 knew it happened elsewhere. 256 00:15:59.760 --> 00:16:01.400 The standard for these women. 257 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:07.360 So these are things that I will never forget some causes. 258 00:16:09.640 --> 00:16:11.880 At the end of the shift, Rivaldo would make notes 259 00:16:11.920 --> 00:16:14.960 about his patients, who lived, who died. 260 00:16:15.400 --> 00:16:19.960 How many birds, how many sea sections, how many surgeries, 261 00:16:20.160 --> 00:16:24.000 how many abortions, how many infected abortions. 262 00:16:24.920 --> 00:16:28.960 And around the year nineteen eighty seven, he noticed a change, 263 00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:30.600 a big change. 264 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:35.320 Severe cases of infections, severe cases of hemorrhage. 265 00:16:35.520 --> 00:16:36.400 They disappeared. 266 00:16:37.280 --> 00:16:40.160 Women were still coming into the er, but they were 267 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:44.120 showing up with new symptoms, much less serious, ones. 268 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:50.160 Like an increasing body temperature hyperthermia. And it didn't make 269 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:55.440 sense because you couldn't find an infections condition. Some women 270 00:16:55.560 --> 00:16:59.920 also had astro intestinal symptoms. We realized that there was 271 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:03.360 something different, and this made us a little confused. 272 00:17:03.680 --> 00:17:05.560 So the show took Kofuzu. 273 00:17:06.560 --> 00:17:09.520 Around the same time, a researcher named Sara Costa was 274 00:17:09.560 --> 00:17:12.840 working for Brazil's School of Public Health in Rio de Janeiro, 275 00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:16.600 more than a thousand miles south from Recife, and she 276 00:17:16.800 --> 00:17:18.360 noticed another big change. 277 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:21.560 We were seeing this incredible decline in fertility. 278 00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:25.920 Suddenly women were having fewer children but. 279 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:31.120 Why it was strange because there were no big policy 280 00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:32.520 changes to account for it. 281 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:39.600 The government wasn't providing much information about how to control fertility, 282 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:44.800 and the borshin was still illegal. So something just wasn't 283 00:17:44.800 --> 00:17:49.320 adding up. Was its spontaneous use of oral contraception. How 284 00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:50.280 were they getting it? 285 00:17:50.760 --> 00:17:54.000 So in the early nineties, Sarah began talking directly to 286 00:17:54.040 --> 00:17:57.240 the women and we conducted. 287 00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:01.000 Those interviews over a period of several months and analyzed 288 00:18:01.040 --> 00:18:01.880 the results. 289 00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:05.400 She and her team interviewed more than eight hundred pregnant 290 00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:08.919 women in seven hospitals in Rio de Janeiro. Many of 291 00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:12.879 those women had come into the hospital bleeding. Hospitals in 292 00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:15.560 Rio and in other parts of the country had been 293 00:18:15.600 --> 00:18:18.480 seeing more cases like this in the past few years, 294 00:18:19.080 --> 00:18:22.080 of women who seemed like they had attempted an abortion. 295 00:18:22.600 --> 00:18:26.560 We thought we would actually discover a lot more complications, 296 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:31.760 serious complications, but most of the women went into hospital 297 00:18:31.800 --> 00:18:36.040 with bleeding, had a cure tage and left left. 298 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:41.679 They didn't get stuck in the hospital with infections or 299 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:43.000 other complications. 300 00:18:43.520 --> 00:18:44.760 It was a bit of a surprise. 301 00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:50.840 In Recife, Rivaldo had noticed a similar pattern. 302 00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:53.240 We had a downward curve. 303 00:18:55.640 --> 00:19:00.560 Downward curve in abortion completion, and then there was a 304 00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:05.040 moment when you almost didn't see any complications of abortion 305 00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:05.480 at all. 306 00:19:05.640 --> 00:19:07.840 Praticamuniting now via complicate. 307 00:19:11.560 --> 00:19:14.800 Fewer complications from abortion meant one thing. 308 00:19:16.800 --> 00:19:18.200 Women stopped dying. 309 00:19:22.560 --> 00:19:26.680 Or at least far fewer were dying. From nineteen eighty 310 00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:30.080 six to nineteen ninety one, the time Sarah and Rivaldo 311 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:34.560 were observing, the World Health Organization recorded a twenty one 312 00:19:34.600 --> 00:19:38.160 percent drop in Brazil's maternal mortality rate. 313 00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:43.800 It seemed like magic, or a better word, familiari. 314 00:19:43.640 --> 00:19:53.480 A miracle, the cause of what Rivaldo calls a miracle. 315 00:19:54.040 --> 00:19:54.800 After the break. 316 00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:00.639 In nineteen seventy three, the same year that Wade was 317 00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:04.639 decided in the United States, something else happened that transformed 318 00:20:04.760 --> 00:20:09.159 reproactive healthcare, but in a much more roundabout way. An 319 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:13.920 American pharmaceutical company called CERL developed a new drug to 320 00:20:14.080 --> 00:20:18.359 gastric ulcers, kind of like TOMS or pepto bismo or 321 00:20:18.359 --> 00:20:23.320 milk of magnesia. It was a small, white hexagon shaped 322 00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:26.920 bill with a tiny figure of a stomach edged on 323 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:28.040 one side. 324 00:20:27.800 --> 00:20:29.840 Not a belly, the actual organ. 325 00:20:30.280 --> 00:20:33.040 It's actually the stomach that makes me remember this bill. 326 00:20:33.520 --> 00:20:36.560 It's called Cytotech and. 327 00:20:36.600 --> 00:20:39.880 Even though it was created by an American pharmaceutical company, 328 00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:43.199 the Food and Drug Administration was slow to approve it, 329 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:47.560 several years before being available in the US. Cideattech first 330 00:20:47.560 --> 00:20:51.000 made its way to Europe and then Brazil in nineteen 331 00:20:51.040 --> 00:20:51.560 eighty six. 332 00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:57.119 And here's where it's hard to know what is fact 333 00:20:57.600 --> 00:20:59.919 and what is part of the myth of side attech, 334 00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:03.240 because in Brazil this ulcer pill took on a new 335 00:21:03.280 --> 00:21:07.200 life for starters. We know that the original side attack 336 00:21:07.280 --> 00:21:11.000 box came with a warning, but because it's been forty years, 337 00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:12.880 people remember that warning differently. 338 00:21:13.480 --> 00:21:17.160 Jacqueline Petangi, the sociologist who says hello to the Christ 339 00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:20.800 statue every morning in Rio de Janeiro, remembers that the 340 00:21:20.840 --> 00:21:22.240 warning was written out. 341 00:21:22.600 --> 00:21:25.959 It's that little paper that comes with the medicine that 342 00:21:26.080 --> 00:21:29.160 says you should avoid to take it if you were 343 00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:33.320 pregnant because it could cause contractions. 344 00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:38.720 Doctor Rivaldo Albuquerque remembers the fine priner more specifically, there was. 345 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:41.520 A very clear paragraph that said that it should not 346 00:21:41.600 --> 00:21:46.040 be usually in pregnant women because it could cause uterinin 347 00:21:46.200 --> 00:21:49.320 contractions and lead to miscarriage. 348 00:21:49.840 --> 00:21:54.160 Debra Denis, a Brazilian anthropologist and law professor who grew 349 00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:57.359 up in the eighties remembers the warning as an image 350 00:21:57.480 --> 00:21:58.119 on the box. 351 00:21:58.440 --> 00:22:02.920 It was a profile of a pregnant woman, a big 352 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:08.159 belly and a warning crossing the belly, and also. 353 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:09.359 With call there was a skull. 354 00:22:09.960 --> 00:22:10.720 There was his call. 355 00:22:11.560 --> 00:22:12.000 Wow. 356 00:22:12.280 --> 00:22:14.160 I'm one hundred percent sure of that. 357 00:22:17.600 --> 00:22:20.600 We haven't been able to confirm this call, but we 358 00:22:20.800 --> 00:22:23.040 have seen the image of a pregnant woman in a 359 00:22:23.080 --> 00:22:24.920 circle with a slash through it. 360 00:22:27.320 --> 00:22:30.520 When the pharma company developed Cida Tech, it discovered that 361 00:22:30.560 --> 00:22:34.040 the drug had the significant side effect on women, a 362 00:22:34.119 --> 00:22:38.000 serious side effect. It caused bleeding and contractions that could 363 00:22:38.040 --> 00:22:39.520 induce a miscarriage. 364 00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:42.359 So for people who were pregnant and wanted to stay 365 00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:45.000 that way, it was a very dangerous pill to take. 366 00:22:46.040 --> 00:22:49.320 But for people who were pregnant and did not want 367 00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:52.639 to be SATEA Tech's side effect wasn't a problem. It 368 00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:56.520 was a solution, a new tool to self manage an abortion. 369 00:22:57.240 --> 00:23:00.680 But unlike the teas and crochet needles women had been using, 370 00:23:01.040 --> 00:23:04.760 set Attack was overwhelmingly safe and effective. 371 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:10.040 And somebody somewhere, somehow figured that out. 372 00:23:13.080 --> 00:23:16.879 I don't think we ever identified where it started. 373 00:23:17.520 --> 00:23:20.520 No, it's impossible to know this. Don't forget. We didn't 374 00:23:20.560 --> 00:23:23.040 have social media. Then there's no records. 375 00:23:23.840 --> 00:23:25.960 It wasn't like there was a lot of incentive to 376 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:29.600 take credit. Whoever did this was likely breaking the law. 377 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:31.200 They wouldn't give their name. 378 00:23:31.280 --> 00:23:35.280 I am Mary Smith, and listen, you can use this 379 00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:36.879 to induce an abortion. 380 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:41.720 Some speculate that it was a pharmacist or a midwife. 381 00:23:42.280 --> 00:23:45.560 We certainly knew that pharmacists were involved. 382 00:23:46.040 --> 00:23:48.960 I went to the pharmacy and I bought this. 383 00:23:49.760 --> 00:23:53.240 But even if we can't know the original source, we 384 00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:56.440 do know how the knowledge spread far and white. 385 00:23:56.320 --> 00:23:57.600 The women themselves. 386 00:23:57.760 --> 00:24:00.639 Women said hah, I have no question and of saying 387 00:24:00.680 --> 00:24:05.040 that it was from women, Brazilian women. Women continue taking 388 00:24:05.080 --> 00:24:08.840 it because it was another woman from her family. 389 00:24:09.040 --> 00:24:12.440 Who shared with her. It certainly wasn't advertised. 390 00:24:12.880 --> 00:24:13.480 Was in the air. 391 00:24:14.040 --> 00:24:16.040 I can't tell you when something is in the air 392 00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:17.640 among women's talks. 393 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:19.359 I mean it was in the air. 394 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:29.719 Sayra was spreading by word of mouth. 395 00:24:30.520 --> 00:24:33.280 This is a woman. We're calling by her initial r 396 00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:36.720 to protect her safety because what she did was and 397 00:24:36.840 --> 00:24:41.879 still is illegal in Brazil. Process. 398 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:44.639 A woman who went through the process would tell another 399 00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:46.439 hey by that by that. 400 00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:50.600 The whispers about side attack reached Dart in nineteen eighty six, 401 00:24:51.080 --> 00:24:53.200