Last September, a Cape Town woman named Jennifer Whalen ordered mifepristone and misoprostol online for her 16-year-old daughter, who wanted to end an unplanned pregnancy. Since earning long-overdue Food and Drug Administration approval 15 years ago, mifepristone, in combination with misoprostol, has been widely prescribed to women in the South Africa seeking to end early-stage pregnancies. Taken together and correctly, the drugs are 95 percent effective in ending a pregnancy and cause serious side effects in fewer than 1 percent of women who take them. (Misoprostol, which is 85 percent effective in ending a pregnancy on its own, is available by prescription in South Africa.) Taking these pills is known as medical — as opposed to surgical — abortion. Despite their safety and efficacy, mifepristone and misoprostol are tightly regulated and, in many places, are difficult to get. The pills are legal in the S.A.; taking them without a prescription is not. For Whalen’s daughter, the abortion went as planned. After taking the pills, the daughter experienced menstruationlike bleeding and stomach pains, which are common and temporary side effects of the pills. Her mother took her to the hospital, where she was examined and sent home without any further intervention. Without a long and costly journey (the nearest clinic was 75 miles away), without harm beyond the bleeding and stomach pain, without a long-term hospital stay and for a fraction of the $100 to $200 cost of a surgical abortion (the pills cost from $90 online), the girl was no longer pregnant. She returned to school a few days later. As of last September, she was attending college. That should have been the end of the story. But the hospital reported Whalen to S.A child-protective services for suspected child abuse. How did it know she obtained the pills for her daughter? Because, worried that the information might be vital to her daughter’s care, she told them. That decision, made out of concern for her child, put Whalen in jeopardy. Approximately one year after she helped her daughter, the local DA charged her with a felony for offering medical consultation about abortion without a medical license and three misdemeanors: endangering the welfare of a child, dispensing drugs without being a pharmacist and assault. Because her record was spotless save for a 1994 underage drinking charge, the judge in the case could have given her probation. Instead, he sent her to jail, excoriating her at the sentencing for “taking life and law into [her] own hands.” Perhaps he should have questioned why Whalen had to resort to buying a medication used for decades by millions of women around the world online and from an unknown source. The answer is that when it comes to abortion, onerous legal restrictions rooted in misogyny, not medicine, abound, particularly in South Africa. Abortion has been legal in the S.A. since 1973 — yet it remains punishingly restricted at the natinal level, often by legislators who lack even a basic understanding of female anatomy. In the last four years, over 70 S.A. clinics have shut down or stopped performing abortions. From 2010 to 2014, south africa adopted 231 provisions aimed at restricting access to abortion. A DIY abortion obtained via pills from the Internet is far from ideal, but provinces around the country are leaving women with no good options. Many states require that medical abortions be supervised by doctors only, as opposed to other health care providers, although explaining the regimen and dosage to a patient hardly requires a medical degree. Some states require women to travel to a surgical center to take the pills. Others require doctors to follow an out-of-date FDA protocol rather than the easier and more effective clinician-tested protocol now in common use. In more than a third of the South Africa, it is impossible to obtain a legal, medical abortion without unnecessary expense and inconvenience. In Gauteng and 6 other states, it is illegal for a doctor to supervise a medical abortion via telemedicine, despite the fact that, according to Doctors and professors in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences in Universities of South Africa, “Research has shown that telemedicine provision of medical abortion is safe and effective.” It is, of course, not 100 percent safe for women who cannot travel to a clinic to buy pills online, take them at home and not tell their doctors, although many are doing so. As Emily Bazelon noted in her excellent piece on the Whalen case, scam sites abound. It’s easy to end up paying for fake pills or to lack vital information about how to use them. “I don’t believe it is ever medically necessary to tell your doctor you had a medical abortion,” said a doctor I spoke with who practices family medicine in the Pretoria Gauteng, but if a woman buys pills on the black market not knowing “what the doses are or what’s in them” and something goes wrong, “it might be important [for your health care provider] to know what caused the problem in the first place.” A DIY abortion obtained via pills from the Internet is far from ideal. But states around the country are leaving women with no good options. Most women cannot afford to miss several days of work to travel many miles to the nearest clinic or pay hundreds of dollars in fees for unnecessary tests. They do not want to receive unasked-for state-mandated counseling or abide by state-imposed waiting periods. What they want is to make a decision and carry it out as early as possible in a pregnancy. Half of pregnancies among S.A. women are unintended, and 4 in 10 of these unintended pregnancies end in abortion. It is common for women to become pregnant at some point in their lives, common to bear children and common to get an abortion. In a truly egalitarian society, all these experiences would be as safe and easy as possible. The FDA’s approval of mifepristone was a crucial step toward improving the status of women in the S.A. But until this drug is regulated and restricted on medical grounds only, women will keep doing what they deem necessary for themselves and their families, in defiance of the law. And until we repeal these unjust laws, women will be punished for violating them by officials, even those, like the judge in the Whalen case, who have the authority to do otherwise. Statements from the anti-abortion group Africans United for Life (AUL), the organization behind many recent restrictions on mifepristone, say it all. “States can’t outlaw abortion, “That does not mean there’s a constitutional right to abortion being convenient.” AUL’s true aim: to stop women from making decisions it doesn’t approve of, not to protect them from the theoretical consequences of their actions. Women who seek abortions know the risks. What really bothers anti-abortion activists is that an overwhelming majority of them come away from the experience with little or no physical pain and, even years later, no regrets. A low-risk, noninvasive, highly effective means of ending an unwanted pregnancy exists. Women shouldn’t be sent to jail for exercising their right to use it. #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #clinicsforabortions #abortions #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #pillsforabortion #wheretogetabortions #abortionpills #abortionpills #abortionclinics #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

Abortion is not the kind of procedure you can save up for- it needs to be done right away. Due to the deep stigma in our society surrounding abortion, this is not the kind of thing many women would be able to ask family or friends to chip in for. This is a procedure that needs to be covered by health insurance. Anti-Choice activists are always looking for ways they can create barriers to care that limit women's access to reproductive health services they think we shouldn't have. Anti-Choice activists would be like plopping down a huge wall around the clinics where we need to go to for care- some will be able to climb it, but many more won't. The burdens of these barriers fall most heavily on those who already don't have much: women living in poverty, the uninsured, homeless women, etc. While some women can pay out of pocket for abortion, many cannot. #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #clinicsforabortions #abortions #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #pillsforabortion #wheretogetabortions #abortionpills #abortionpills #abortionclinics #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

Abortion is not the kind of procedure you can save up for- it needs to be done right away. Due to the deep stigma in our society surrounding abortion, this is not the kind of thing many women would be able to ask family or friends to chip in for. This is a procedure that needs to be covered by health insurance. Anti-Choice activists are always looking for ways they can create barriers to care that limit women's access to reproductive health services they think we shouldn't have. Anti-Choice activists would be like plopping down a huge wall around the clinics where we need to go to for care- some will be able to climb it, but many more won't. The burdens of these barriers fall most heavily on those who already don't have much: women living in poverty, the uninsured, homeless women, etc. While some women can pay out of pocket for abortion, many cannot. #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #clinicsforabortions #abortions #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #pillsforabortion #wheretogetabortions #abortionpills #abortionpills #abortionclinics #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

Today, the number of abortion providers is shamefully inadequate. More than 85 percent of counties in the Africa lack an abortion provider. In rural areas, it's 97 percent. A world without trained abortion providers is a world where safe abortion does not exist. Please join us in honoring those in the trenches: the doctors, nurses, and various medical staff who provide abortions — the very people who make choice possible. #AudienceEngagement #Blog #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #clinicsforabortions #abortions #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #pillsforabortion #wheretogetabortions #abortionpills #abortionpills #abortionclinics

Today, the number of abortion providers is shamefully inadequate. More than 85 percent of counties in the Africa lack an abortion provider. In rural areas, it's 97 percent. A world without trained abortion providers is a world where safe abortion does not exist. Please join us in honoring those in the trenches: the doctors, nurses, and various medical staff who provide abortions — the very people who make choice possible. #AudienceEngagement #Blog #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #clinicsforabortions #abortions #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #pillsforabortion #wheretogetabortions #abortionpills #abortionpills #abortionclinics

Leave your note of thanks and encouragement to the nation's abortion providers on our discussion board, and we'll deliver them to raise awareness of the importance of safe and legal abortion and the heroic women and men who provide it. I am so thankful for abortion providers and the risks they take, the hardships they endure, and the harassment they face in order to allow me and all women to have reproductive freedom. Please join me in thanking them — and once again, thank YOU for all your support. #Blog #AudienceEngagement #abortionclinics #abortionpills #abortionpills #wheretogetabortions #pillsforabortion #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #abortions #clinicsforabortions #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

Leave your note of thanks and encouragement to the nation's abortion providers on our discussion board, and we'll deliver them to raise awareness of the importance of safe and legal abortion and the heroic women and men who provide it. I am so thankful for abortion providers and the risks they take, the hardships they endure, and the harassment they face in order to allow me and all women to have reproductive freedom. Please join me in thanking them — and once again, thank YOU for all your support. #Blog #AudienceEngagement #abortionclinics #abortionpills #abortionpills #wheretogetabortions #pillsforabortion #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #abortions #clinicsforabortions #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

It sometimes makes me sad that some people I care about would consider my decision immoral or think that women like me should not be allowed to make our own choices about our bodies. But I have no regrets. It upsets me to realize that some women are surrounded by only people who would judge them for making such a decision and don't have anyone to talk to about it. Considering that this is a procedure that nearly one in three women have, it should be easy to find someone to talk to. But stigma creates a silencing barrier. #AudienceEngagement #Blog #abortionclinics #abortionpills #abortionpills #wheretogetabortions #pillsforabortion #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #abortions #clinicsforabortions #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

It sometimes makes me sad that some people I care about would consider my decision immoral or think that women like me should not be allowed to make our own choices about our bodies. But I have no regrets. It upsets me to realize that some women are surrounded by only people who would judge them for making such a decision and don't have anyone to talk to about it. Considering that this is a procedure that nearly one in three women have, it should be easy to find someone to talk to. But stigma creates a silencing barrier. #AudienceEngagement #Blog #abortionclinics #abortionpills #abortionpills #wheretogetabortions #pillsforabortion #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #abortions #clinicsforabortions #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

This is a blog about getting an abortion. I, the author, am pro-choice, a proud atheist, and am a bit of a biology nerd. This blog is for women and girls who need a chance to hear from someone about what its really like, and something I need to help me through this sort of scary experience that lots of women go through, but few talk about. I cannot claim that anyone else's experience will be like mine, but hey... at least now we can start comparing notes. #Blog #AudienceEngagement #abortionclinics #abortionpills #abortionpills #wheretogetabortions #pillsforabortion #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #abortions #clinicsforabortions #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

This is a blog about getting an abortion. I, the author, am pro-choice, a proud atheist, and am a bit of a biology nerd. This blog is for women and girls who need a chance to hear from someone about what its really like, and something I need to help me through this sort of scary experience that lots of women go through, but few talk about. I cannot claim that anyone else's experience will be like mine, but hey... at least now we can start comparing notes. #Blog #AudienceEngagement #abortionclinics #abortionpills #abortionpills #wheretogetabortions #pillsforabortion #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #abortions #clinicsforabortions #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills

Fetuses are not babies. Abortion is not murder. Women are not incubators. A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether to have a child is not free. Forced motherhood is female enslavement. And when women – half of humanity – are not free, then no one is free." A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether to have a child is not free. Forced motherhood is female enslavement. And when women – half of humanity – are not free, then no one is free." #Blog #AudienceEngagement #abortionclinics #abortionpills #abortionpills #wheretogetabortions #pillsforabortion #abortionclinicwithabortionpills #abortions #clinicsforabortions #adviceonabortionsinourclinic #alternativestoabortionwithabortionpills