Tue, Jun 20, 2023 page7

• After bans, US women turn to abortion hotline

  • AFP, FIRE ISLAND, New York
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  The telephone had been ringing nonstop for a year. Linda Prine, a New York doctor, repeated her advice on a loop: “Make sure you’re drinking plenty of fluids,” “Take some ibuprofen,” “Everything’s fine, you can relax.”

  The Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, which Prine cofounded, is staffed by about 70 healthcare professionals on a voluntary rotational basis, providing advice and fielding questions from US women seeking to end their pregnancies.

  Their support is especially sought by those who must perform their own abortions alone at home, without seeing a doctor, because the procedure is illegal in their states.

  

  Doctor Linda Prine poses for a photograph in New York City on May 30.

  Photo: AFP

  Prine and a colleague set up the helpline in 2019, as state-level abortion restrictions grew under former US president Donald Trump. They started out with 12 volunteers.

  Then, a year ago, the US Supreme Court revoked the federal right to abortion. About 15 states have since banned or severely curtailed access to the procedure.

  The decision triggered a “huge bump” in call volume to the hotline, the physician told reporters.

  Even while recently vacationing in a small rental home just outside New York, Prine took a shift. Over four hours, she received 13 calls and responded to 18 people by text message.

  “I used to be able to multitask. Now I don’t even have time to go to the bathroom,” said the advocate, who has been committed to the cause for decades.

  The work can be “exhausting,” she said.

  By far the most common reason people call: Asking where to find the so-called abortion pills, the federally approved drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. The hotline does not provide them directly, but tells callers where to find them online. In states where abortion is prohibited, it is still possible to order them from abroad.

  Many patients call the hotline after taking the pills, to make sure the abortion actually worked. Pregnancy tests can remain positive for up to several weeks after an abortion, sometimes causing confusion.

  “Before you took all the medicines, did you have sore breasts and you felt tired and sort of nauseous?” Prine asked one woman, kindly. “Are those [symptoms] going away?”

  At other times, the distress comes from bleeding that lasts weeks, which can be normal.

  “Most of the time, we’re not really giving medical advice, we’re giving reassurance,” Prine said. “The medical piece is very safe. The fear and anxiety piece is hard.”

  Many women who call have not spoken to anybody else about their abortions for fear of being reported, she said.

  “You can just hear it in people’s voices, they are so grateful to have a place to talk to somebody who can answer their questions,” Prine said.

  The telephone line is open 18 hours a day, every day.

  Most of the volunteers are general practitioners and the patients remain anonymous.

  One of the patients that morning mentioned calling from Texas, where abortion is now illegal, even in cases of rape.

  “I’m sorry you live in such an awful state,” a doctor said to one caller, sympathetically.

  The biggest change Prine has seen since legal abortion was widely curtailed has been how far along women’s pregnancies have become at the point when they take the pills. The medicine can take several weeks to arrive when shipped from abroad.

  In the hotline’s first three years, they had only one or two calls from someone using pills at 18 weeks.

  “And now we will get a call like that once or twice a day sometimes,” she said.

  The US Food and Drug Administration has approved abortion pills for use up to 10 weeks since the end of the patient’s last menstrual cycle.

  For second trimester abortions, patients can be “in a total state of panic, because they’ve just passed a recognizable fetus and the umbilical cord is still there,” she said.

  Most of the time, they do not require medical attention, but “it’s just infuriating that anyone is having to go through this stuff, that anyone is by themselves with no medical care,” she said.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Typhoon Usagi expected to brush past Taiwan

  • 2

    Videos about Taiwan upset China: source

  • 3

    First new MRT line train arrives

  • 4

    Taiwan in Time: The rise and fall of Taipei’s sky bridges

  • 5

    Potential tropical storm could affect Taiwan: CWA