Close down the clinics? No problem. Access to abortion is flourishing here in Texas.
Erica Hellerstein calls it “do-it-yourself” abortion, but don’t flip out. We’re not talking coat hangers. We’re talking “miso.” We’re talking open air markets around Texas and particularly here, in the south.
Customers browse simple items—miracle-diet teas, Barbie dolls or turquoise jeans stretched over curvy mannequins—but there are also shoppers scanning the market for goods that aren’t displayed in the stalls. Tables lined with bottles of medicine like Tylenol and NyQuil have double-meanings to those in the know: The over-the-counter drugs on top provide cover for the prescription drugs smuggled over the border from nearby cities in Mexico. Those, the dealer keeps out of sight.
I’m here to look for a small, white, hexagonal pill called misoprostol. Also known as miso or Cytotec, the drug induces an abortion that appears like a miscarriage during the early stages of a woman’s pregnancy. For women living in Latin America and other countries that have traditionally outlawed abortion, miso has been a lifeline—it’s been called “a noble medication,” “world-shaking” and “revolutionary.” But now, it’s not just an asset of the developing world.
Brazilian pharmacies distributed misoprostol over the counter as an ulcer medication. Its use as an abortion-inducing drug slipped below the radar—but spread rapidly.
As policies restricting access to abortion roll out in Texas and elsewhere, the use of miso is quickly becoming a part of this country’s story. It has already made its way into the black market here in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, where abortion restrictions are tightening, and it is likely to continue its trajectory if anti-abortion legislation does not ease up and clinics continue to be closed. …Hellerstein,TheAtlantic
It’s impossible to predict what the Supreme Court will decide in any case, let alone the Hobby Lobby decision — due very soon. Jeffrey Toobin, though, dares to predict that Hobby Lobby will be allowed to deny reproductive health coverage to their employees. Which means we’re back where we were years ago, when it was “always” possible to have an abortion, just not this Supreme Court’s sanction of women’s rights to full dignity and equality.
Cross-posted from Prairie Weather