Introduction :
Self-Managed Abortion and Medico-Legal Systems
My project will explore how feminist networks that facilitate self-managed abortion through the use of abortion pills in contexts where abortion is restricted or inaccessible are integral to the realisation of abortion rights. While some countries have made recent strides towards progress on abortion rights (for example, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico), many others resist calls to liberalise their abortion legislation. Religious, political, or socio-cultural influence and resource constraints also create obstacles to accessing legal abortion services in some regions. United Nations treaty bodies have established human rights standards on abortion, including recommending the decriminalisation of abortion and the accessibility of legal abortion services in practice. However, as many governments fail to uphold these standards, and the courts cannot be relied on to guarantee them, feminist networks that support self-managed abortion are often integral to the realisation of abortion rights. Where abortion is legally prohibited (or legal but inaccessible), feminist groups mobilise to create pathways to abortion access through cross-border travel or clandestine abortion at home. The drug misoprostol, used to treat gastrointestinal ulcers, was discovered as an abortifacient in Brazil in the 1990’s, and this knowledge soon spread across the restrictive jurisdictions of Latin America (Costa and Vessey 1993). The use of the drug was associated with a reduction in the high maternal mortality rates of the region which were linked to unsafe abortion (Jelinska and Yanow 2018, 86). Misoprostol, often taken along with the abortion pill mifepristone, offers a safe and effective means of terminating a pregnancy: both medicines are now on the WHO List of Essential Medicines (2023, 53) and are routinely used in formal abortion healthcare. As such, scholars have increasingly referred to this practice as ‘self-managed abortion’ to distinguish it from unsafe forms of illegal abortion (see, for example, Erdman, Jelinska, and Yanow 2018; Assis and Larrea 2020).