WEBVTT - The Network: Saint-o-tec 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:04.080 Dear listener, It's Maria no Josa and before we start, 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.640 I want to give you a heads up because this 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:12.119 is not a regular Latino USA episode. Today representing the 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.079 first episode of the network, which is a new series 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.480 that let You Know USA co produced with NPR's Embedded podcast. 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:20.479 Now. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.959 This series is about something that is really relevant in 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.240 the United States right now, and that is abortion. But 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.160 it's not the story you might be expecting. Our series 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.120 follows women across the Americas who discovered a method to 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:42.440 have safe abortions without doctors in countries where abortion was 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:47.479 pretty much banned, and these women changed how people access 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:51.560 abortion not only in their countries but around the world, 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.920 including right here in the United States today. For over 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:00.000 a year, Latin Know USA producers Victoria Estrada and Marta 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.200 Martinez have been reporting on this story and now they're 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.520 going to take us all over the Americas to follow 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:12.560 this movement made up of women's networks. Here now are 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.480 Martha and Victoria with the first episode of the network. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.240 It was one of those moments when people understand their 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.039 witnessing history, they remember where they were. 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.040 I was standing at my standing desk in my house, 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:30.080 waiting and. 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.440 I just started crying at my desk. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:36.720 It was totally surreal. 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.640 They remember where they were when Roe versus Wade fell. 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.040 The biggest change to abortion rights in the United States 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.440 and nearly half a century is here. 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.880 The Supreme Court had made its decision. 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:55.760 Ruling that ends the constitutional right to an abortion. While 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.840 abortion rights opponents celebrated the news that Rowe had been overturned, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.000 many abortion rights supporters feared the US was going backwards, 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:08.880 back to the nineteen hundred. 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.400 It's like, what are they going to take from us next? 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:13.840 Back to a more dangerous time. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.120 This is an emergency, This is an extreme crisis. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.040 People will die across the country. 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.720 Protesters gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:29.400 d c. Holding images of code hangers over their heads 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.680 right by by. 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.480 The day after the fall of Row, thirteen states immediately 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.800 banned or severely limited abortion. Eventually nearly half of old 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.320 states did, and within a month of the ruling, dozens 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.880 of clinics stopped performing abortions, forcing many Americans to trouble 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:52.760 hundreds of miles to get one. Other laws targeted abortion providers. 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:53.760 Are you scared? 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:55.960 I am scared, and I think a lot of us 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.720 are because there's nowhere else in medicine that is policed 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:09.400 and regulated and now criminalized to such a degree. 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.359 But not all abortion rights supporters felt this way. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.240 Everybody was so calm in the network. 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:23.840 The network, it's what we're calling the diffuse set of 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.680 people who are expanding abortion access in an unconventional way. 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:29.800 They were not panicking. 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.400 Everybody was like, we've been doing this work, We're going 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:33.760 to continue doing this work. 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:35.800 Nothing is changing. Who cares. 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:37.440 I'm actually energized. 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.640 This network it's hard to even describe because it's not 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:51.240 formal or centralized. There's no ceo, no headquarters. 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.640 Some people work together, but plenty don't know each other. 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.120 They're midwives and nurses, grandmothers and friends. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.760 This network cross borders and reaches people throughout the world, 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:07.200 from South Africa to Mian March to Mexico and all 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:11.560 over the United States. What unites the network is how 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:15.680 they are expanding abortion access by helping women have safe 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.240 abortions on their own without a doctor involved. 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.520 Their method grew out of a very small thing. It 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:25.240 actually fits in the palm of your hand. 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.920 But despite being physically tiny, when it comes to reproactive health, 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.320 doctors researchers and people working in this field say it's 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:38.960 been monumental, extraordinarily important. 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.960 It's a lifesaver in so many ways. 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.640 Is the equivalent to the discovery of penicillin, because it's 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:45.240 a before and. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:52.760 After, But unlike penicillin, this discovery has not been universally embraced. Instead, 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.520 it's the latest target of abortion restrictions that continue to 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:57.200 make the news. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.479 The future of abortion access could be impacted by a 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.040 new lawsuit just filed by the Attorney General of Texas. 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.920 Long dormant federal law prohibits the nailing of any supplies 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:08.200 used for abortions. 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.320 Possession could be punishable by up to five years in prison. 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.919 From NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media's Latino Usa, This Is 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:23.080 the Network. 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.200 A series about the DIY method that tooks safe abortions 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.159 out of the clinic and the women who made it happen. 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:31.880 Episode one, Santo Tech. 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.240 I'm Victoria Estrada. 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:41.320 And I'm Marta Martine. We're both producers at the public 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.360 radio show Latino USA. We've been covering reproductive rights in 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.280 the Americas for years now. 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.880 And when we started to see more and more challenges 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.800 to abortion access in the US. We immediately thought about 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:58.880 Latin America because historically Latin America has had strict abortion bands, 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.200 not so different from what we're seeing now in parts 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:02.280 of the US. 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.159 But as research from around the world shows, bands don't 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.960 stop people from getting abortions. They just lead them to 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.200 take more risks to end their pregnancies. That's where the 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:17.040 phrase bacali abortion comes from and where we get the 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.479 image of a woman using a code hanger self managing 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:21.080 her abortion. 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.480 But nearly forty years ago, in Latin America, women developed 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.919 an abortion method that was medically safe and effective, no 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.359 doctor needed, and this new type of self managed abortion 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.960 transformed how abortions happened across the world today. 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:40.000 It all started in Brazil, where this method was born 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.279 in the late nineteen eighties. Victoria and I took a 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.479 trip there last year in twenty twenty four, and one 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:50.440 of the people we interviewed was Jacqueline pe Tanki Hi. 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:51.240 Jacqueline. 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.479 Jacqueline is a longtime feminist advocate how was Your Day? 0:06:56.040 --> 0:07:00.200 And she lived through Brazil's military dictatorship, which lasted for 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.000 more than two decades. When the dictatorship fell in nineteen 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.400 eighty five, she thought to get women's rights into Brazil's 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:11.400 new constitution, because women at the time had so little 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:16.760 say in their workplaces, marriages, or over their bodies. 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:18.800 So here in front. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:19.560 You have the Christ. 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.400 Oh, it's here, right here. 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.920 From Jacqueline's falcony in Rio de Janeiro, we could see 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:30.520 what's probably the most iconic image of Brazil, the statue 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.120 of Christ the Redeemer. So you see it every day 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:38.200 in the morning when you wake up, like hello and yeah, 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.440 I say hello, Christ, how are you be good? 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:43.320 Be good, Jesus Christ. 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.280 Maybe you've seen it in a movie or photos. It's 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.080 this huge sculpture overlooking the whole city of Rio de 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.840 Janeiro on top of this spectacular cliff. It's interesting because 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.520 I was actually talking about this with Victoria this morning, 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.360 that religion is very resent in this city in a 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.680 very visual way, because you have the Christ up there 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.239 in the mountain looking at you all from everywhere. 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.840 Yeah, everywhere, everywhere. 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.120 It's this constant reminder of the influenced Catholicism has had 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.000 on Brazil for much of its history. 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:26.560 For the careful of church contraception has always been a 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:27.680 key issue. 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.080 Until the eighties, many Brazilian women didn't have great access 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.320 to birth control before then. In the Burhish region of 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.800 the country, women had an average almost six children. 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.160 We heard that some women just didn't know much about 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.679 their own bodies. For example, some women were afraid of 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.840 using tampons because they thought they might get lost inside 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.160 of their vaginas. We also heard that some women thought 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.920 that their vagina was connected to their mouth. 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.280 This lack of knowledge had serious consequences. 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:06.720 Significant let's call punishment. It was on women's bodies, death 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:14.880 or morbidity. 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:20.360 Okay, could you just count to ten whom doyce. 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:26.600 In the nineteen eighties, Brazil's maternal mortality rate was higher 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.120 than most of the rest of the world. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:32.800 UVV my, do we see you in Mohel? 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.560 I lived through a time when women got sick and died, 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:42.920 died of infection, died of bleeding, young women, extremely young women. 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:49.520 This is doctor Rivaldo Albuquerque so medicotetra. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:55.040 I am a gynecologist, I am a practicing Catholic and 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.680 I have been working with women's health since I was 0:09:57.720 --> 0:09:58.840 a medical student. 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.080 I visited Rivaldo in the coastal city of Recife in 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.679 northeast Brazil. It's the poorest region in the country. When 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.480 he started working in a public hospital in nineteen eighty five, 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.040 the state that Recife is in had the highest maternal 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.680 mortality rate in all of Brazil. Rivaldo saw it every 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.560 day in the emergency room, a lot of pregnant women 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.439 coming into a r with complications from a lack of 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:27.679 prenatal care, like chronically high blood pressure, and also complications 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:28.320 from abortion. 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.360 Abortion was and still is illegal in most cases in Brazil, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.280 and it was often seen as a sin, but that 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:40.440 doesn't mean women were not getting abortions. Research from that 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.280 time estimated there were between one and four million abortions 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:46.160 happening in the country every year. 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:47.640 I spasushkity on. 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.160 People who had the money could look for doctors who 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:56.319 did abortions in clinics in hospitals with every safety precaution, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.800 using sterilized materials. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.240 In other words, people who had the money could go 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.640 see a doctor who was willing to break the law 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.400 for the right price. Those were not the women who 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.800 ended up in the emergency room where Rivaldo worked. His 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.319 patients had often gone to places that were less reputable 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:18.319 and unsafe. 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:20.920 Others just tried to self manage their abortion. 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:26.720 We heard about lots of ways, herbs, teas or drinks, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:33.400 shahs beb in, session of foreign objects, the rods of 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:38.840 an umbrella, needles, and whatever medicines they could buy at 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:39.479 the pharmacy. 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.680 You know all the horror stories that you read about. 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.640 By the time women got to Rivaldo, they often had 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.800 perforations in their uterus, hemorrhages, and serious infections. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.280 Rivaldo told us about a specific case that has stayed 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.040 with him. It was a patient who was only a 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.280 few years younger, and he was at the time. 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.040 Romomili Diziandois Feelius. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.920 She was a nineteen year old woman who had already 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:10.120 had two children. 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.240 She came in with a generalized infection. 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.480 It was a desperate condition and we didn't have any 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:22.480 background information about this woman. She wouldn't speak, She was 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.760 in no position to explain what had happened to her, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.680 and the person who brought her in didn't want to 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:30.319 talk either. 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.640 Rivaldo and the other doctors suspected she had an unsafe abortion, 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.160 and so they decided to do an exploratory operation. 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.600 So that we could evaluate the abdomen what was happening 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.920 with this infection. And when we opened the abdominal cavity, 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:51.040 we found the uterus that smelled part of the word rotten. 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:54.559 Rivaldo still remembers it. 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:59.400 A terrible smell with several perforations. It was a classic 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:05.359 picture of an unsafe abortion. Since it's an illegal procedure. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.239 The women must have stayed home for a few days 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:11.679 or didn't receive proper medication. 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:15.800 Who knows how long she waited to go to the 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.760 hospital after signs that something was wrong, and now there 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:22.080 was nothing the doctors could do. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.920 Why did this woman die? I can't tell you without hesitation. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.800 Because she was black and because she was poor. 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:37.720 Poqueraigre Rivaldo told us he really felt for these women. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.280 They are in a situation of suffering, of vulnerability. 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.040 Their health and their life are at risk. 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:53.080 I know these women, many are Christians, Evangelical, Catholic, but 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.800 they are going through a specific moment in their life. 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:57.160 They are in need. 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:05.400 But Rivaldo was an exception. Many doctors did not treat 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:06.360 these patients well. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.760 Women who had tried to have an abortion were the 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:13.319 last ones to be treated during our shifts. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.160 So these women they would be in the emergency room 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.840 all day long without food or anything to drink. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.680 They spent the whole day fasting waiting for their procedure 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:30.080 on an empty stomach, and they are being punished because 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.520 they were the last ones to be taken care of. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.080 He remembers that some doctors wouldn't give the women enough 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:42.480 anesthesia before their diletion and curtash or DNC, so the 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.120 women would feel the pain of their cervix being dilated 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.600 and the walls of their urs being scraped. 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.320 And the women cried out because of the pain of 0:14:54.400 --> 0:15:00.400 their suffering. Unfortunately, I heard medical staff say, when you 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.120 did it, it was a lot of joy, a lot 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.480 of pleasure, and now you're crying. 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.680 You don't know what you did. You killed the baby. 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.840 One doctor told researchers at the time that his hospital 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.160 was doing two hysterectomies a week because of so many 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:27.480 botched abortions. Another doctor called working with these patients a 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.840 quote revolting process because she was presenting us with a 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.960 disgusting mess unquote. 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.480 Some doctors went even further than insulting the women. In 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.120 some cases they called the police. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.480 And the police would come all the way to the 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.680 hospital and handcuff the women. 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:51.560 They would chain them to the bed. Women were arrested. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.280 Rivaldo says his hospital never let this happen, but he 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.320 knew it happened elsewhere. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.400 The standard for these women. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:07.360 So these are things that I will never forget some causes. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:11.880 At the end of the shift, Rivaldo would make notes 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.960 about his patients, who lived, who died. 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.960 How many birds, how many sea sections, how many surgeries, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.000 how many abortions, how many infected abortions. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.960 And around the year nineteen eighty seven, he noticed a change, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:30.600 a big change. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:35.320 Severe cases of infections, severe cases of hemorrhage. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:36.400 They disappeared. 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.160 Women were still coming into the er, but they were 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:44.120 showing up with new symptoms, much less serious, ones. 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:50.160 Like an increasing body temperature hyperthermia. And it didn't make 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:55.440 sense because you couldn't find an infections condition. Some women 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.920 also had astro intestinal symptoms. We realized that there was 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.360 something different, and this made us a little confused. 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:05.560 So the show took Kofuzu. 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.520 Around the same time, a researcher named Sara Costa was 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.840 working for Brazil's School of Public Health in Rio de Janeiro, 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.600 more than a thousand miles south from Recife, and she 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:18.360 noticed another big change. 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.560 We were seeing this incredible decline in fertility. 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.920 Suddenly women were having fewer children but. 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:31.120 Why it was strange because there were no big policy 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:32.520 changes to account for it. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:39.600 The government wasn't providing much information about how to control fertility, 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.800 and the borshin was still illegal. So something just wasn't 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:49.320 adding up. Was its spontaneous use of oral contraception. How 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:50.280 were they getting it? 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.000 So in the early nineties, Sarah began talking directly to 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.240 the women and we conducted. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:01.000 Those interviews over a period of several months and analyzed 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:01.880 the results. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.400 She and her team interviewed more than eight hundred pregnant 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.919 women in seven hospitals in Rio de Janeiro. Many of 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.879 those women had come into the hospital bleeding. Hospitals in 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.560 Rio and in other parts of the country had been 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.480 seeing more cases like this in the past few years, 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.080 of women who seemed like they had attempted an abortion. 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.560 We thought we would actually discover a lot more complications, 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:31.760 serious complications, but most of the women went into hospital 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:36.040 with bleeding, had a cure tage and left left. 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.679 They didn't get stuck in the hospital with infections or 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.000 other complications. 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:44.760 It was a bit of a surprise. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.840 In Recife, Rivaldo had noticed a similar pattern. 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:53.240 We had a downward curve. 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.560 Downward curve in abortion completion, and then there was a 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:05.040 moment when you almost didn't see any complications of abortion 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:05.480 at all. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:07.840 Praticamuniting now via complicate. 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.800 Fewer complications from abortion meant one thing. 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.200 Women stopped dying. 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.680 Or at least far fewer were dying. From nineteen eighty 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.080 six to nineteen ninety one, the time Sarah and Rivaldo 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.560 were observing, the World Health Organization recorded a twenty one 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.160 percent drop in Brazil's maternal mortality rate. 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:43.800 It seemed like magic, or a better word, familiari. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:53.480 A miracle, the cause of what Rivaldo calls a miracle. 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:54.800 After the break. 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.639 In nineteen seventy three, the same year that Wade was 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.639 decided in the United States, something else happened that transformed 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.159 reproactive healthcare, but in a much more roundabout way. An 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:13.920 American pharmaceutical company called CERL developed a new drug to 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:18.359 gastric ulcers, kind of like TOMS or pepto bismo or 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:23.320 milk of magnesia. It was a small, white hexagon shaped 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.920 bill with a tiny figure of a stomach edged on 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:28.040 one side. 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:29.840 Not a belly, the actual organ. 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.040 It's actually the stomach that makes me remember this bill. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.560 It's called Cytotech and. 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.880 Even though it was created by an American pharmaceutical company, 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.199 the Food and Drug Administration was slow to approve it, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.560 several years before being available in the US. Cideattech first 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.000 made its way to Europe and then Brazil in nineteen 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:51.560 eighty six. 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.119 And here's where it's hard to know what is fact 0:20:57.600 --> 0:20:59.919 and what is part of the myth of side attech, 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.240 because in Brazil this ulcer pill took on a new 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:07.200 life for starters. We know that the original side attack 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.000 box came with a warning, but because it's been forty years, 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:12.880 people remember that warning differently. 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.160 Jacqueline Petangi, the sociologist who says hello to the Christ 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.800 statue every morning in Rio de Janeiro, remembers that the 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:22.240 warning was written out. 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.959 It's that little paper that comes with the medicine that 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.160 says you should avoid to take it if you were 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:33.320 pregnant because it could cause contractions. 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:38.720 Doctor Rivaldo Albuquerque remembers the fine priner more specifically, there was. 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:41.520 A very clear paragraph that said that it should not 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:46.040 be usually in pregnant women because it could cause uterinin 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.320 contractions and lead to miscarriage. 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:54.160 Debra Denis, a Brazilian anthropologist and law professor who grew 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.359 up in the eighties remembers the warning as an image 0:21:57.480 --> 0:21:58.119 on the box. 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:02.920 It was a profile of a pregnant woman, a big 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:08.159 belly and a warning crossing the belly, and also. 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:09.359 With call there was a skull. 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:10.720 There was his call. 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:12.000 Wow. 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.160 I'm one hundred percent sure of that. 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.600 We haven't been able to confirm this call, but we 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.040 have seen the image of a pregnant woman in a 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:24.920 circle with a slash through it. 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:30.520 When the pharma company developed Cida Tech, it discovered that 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.040 the drug had the significant side effect on women, a 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:38.000 serious side effect. It caused bleeding and contractions that could 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:39.520 induce a miscarriage. 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.359 So for people who were pregnant and wanted to stay 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.000 that way, it was a very dangerous pill to take. 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:49.320 But for people who were pregnant and did not want 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:52.639 to be SATEA Tech's side effect wasn't a problem. It 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.520 was a solution, a new tool to self manage an abortion. 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.680 But unlike the teas and crochet needles women had been using, 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.760 set Attack was overwhelmingly safe and effective. 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:10.040 And somebody somewhere, somehow figured that out. 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.879 I don't think we ever identified where it started. 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.520 No, it's impossible to know this. Don't forget. We didn't 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.040 have social media. Then there's no records. 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:25.960 It wasn't like there was a lot of incentive to 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:29.600 take credit. Whoever did this was likely breaking the law. 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:31.200 They wouldn't give their name. 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.280 I am Mary Smith, and listen, you can use this 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:36.879 to induce an abortion. 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.720 Some speculate that it was a pharmacist or a midwife. 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.560 We certainly knew that pharmacists were involved. 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.960 I went to the pharmacy and I bought this. 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:53.240 But even if we can't know the original source, we 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:56.440 do know how the knowledge spread far and white. 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:57.600 The women themselves. 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:00.639 Women said hah, I have no question and of saying 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:05.040 that it was from women, Brazilian women. Women continue taking 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:08.840 it because it was another woman from her family. 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.440 Who shared with her. It certainly wasn't advertised. 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:13.480 Was in the air. 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:16.040 I can't tell you when something is in the air 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:17.640 among women's talks. 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:19.359 I mean it was in the air. 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:29.719 Sayra was spreading by word of mouth. 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.280 This is a woman. We're calling by her initial r 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.720 to protect her safety because what she did was and 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:41.879 still is illegal in Brazil. Process. 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:44.639 A woman who went through the process would tell another 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:46.439 hey by that by that. 0:24:47.359 --> 0:24:50.600 The whispers about side attack reached Dart in nineteen eighty six, 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:53.200