Zika Fears Prompt Searches For Abortion Alternatives, Study Finds

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO, June 22 (Reuters) - Fearing the effects of the Zika virus on their unborn children, pregnant women in Latin America increasingly have sought out abortion pills online from a nonprofit aid agency, a new study has found. The research, published on Wednesday as a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to measure the response of pregnant women to Zika warnings in countries where abortion is limited or banned. First detected in Brazil last year, the current Zika outbreak has been linked to more than 1,400 cases of microcephaly, a rare birth defect that can lead to severe developmental problems. As the Zika virus spreads through Latin America, several countries, such as El Salvador, advised women to avoid pregnancy, even if their access to birth control or abortion was restricted. The World Health Organization also recently advised couples living in areas with Zika transmission to consider delaying pregnancy. "When you issue these kinds of advisories, but you uncouple them from pathways to safe and legal care, you create a really difficult situation for women," said study co-author Dr. Abigail Aiken, a reproductive health expert at the University of Texas at Austin. Aiken and colleagues analyzed requests for abortion services from Women on Web, a nonprofit that provides access to the abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol, as well as online consultations to women in countries where legal abortion is limited. The group of...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news