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.
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.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
RSS