Training Informal Abortion Pill Vendors to Give Correct Information

In Honduras and Guatemala, women who need to terminate a pregnancy access abortion pills through Facebook, blogs or Twitter ads. The majority of these informal vendors do not make a big effort to provide accurate information about how to use the drugs because their primary motive is to profit off of the sale of Misoprostol, a drug that can be used to end pregnancy in the first trimester. This is a generic drug that women cannot legally access in their countries, even if their pregnancies are a result of sexual violence or if their lives are in danger. 

Optio, in partnership and with funding from Hesperian, trained informal abortion pill vendors in Guatemala on how to provide their clients with accurate information about how to use the medicine safely via a safe abortion app, built by Hesperian. The app provides important information about dosage, side effects, how to recognize signs that emergency care is needed, and what to tell medical personnel if they do need to go to the hospital. We believe that connecting these informal vendors and their clients to a reliable source of information will significantly decrease the risk of these women suffering major health consequences and/or being prosecuted unnecessarily.

The majority of informal vendors that we trained in both Honduras and Guatemala are now using the app with their clients. Some post the safe abortion app link directly on their social media websites, while others have incorporated specific images or screenshots from the app into their conversations with clients over text. 

We are thrilled to report that we just received a new grant from the Lalor Foundation to carry out this project in Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador in 2021.