Dubai Telegraph - Abortion pill: the women of the 'resistance'

EUR -
AED 3.826681
AFN 70.961758
ALL 98.138602
AMD 405.652886
ANG 1.877182
AOA 951.190259
ARS 1045.720247
AUD 1.602814
AWG 1.877897
AZN 1.775245
BAM 1.955573
BBD 2.102956
BDT 124.465544
BGN 1.955294
BHD 0.392554
BIF 3076.642669
BMD 1.041829
BND 1.403837
BOB 7.197164
BRL 6.043693
BSD 1.041579
BTN 87.914489
BWP 14.229347
BYN 3.408604
BYR 20419.848375
BZD 2.099456
CAD 1.456529
CDF 2991.091432
CHF 0.930957
CLF 0.036923
CLP 1018.83097
CNY 7.54601
CNH 7.562783
COP 4573.368835
CRC 530.538382
CUC 1.041829
CUP 27.608468
CVE 110.252195
CZK 25.343745
DJF 185.478458
DKK 7.457729
DOP 62.772709
DZD 139.835759
EGP 51.726992
ERN 15.627435
ETB 127.508391
FJD 2.371151
FKP 0.822333
GBP 0.831435
GEL 2.855018
GGP 0.822333
GHS 16.456089
GIP 0.822333
GMD 73.970229
GNF 8977.957272
GTQ 8.040066
GYD 217.904692
HKD 8.110066
HNL 26.320943
HRK 7.431636
HTG 136.72412
HUF 411.522823
IDR 16610.452733
ILS 3.856892
IMP 0.822333
INR 87.968134
IQD 1364.44153
IRR 43834.955489
ISK 145.523076
JEP 0.822333
JMD 165.930728
JOD 0.738765
JPY 161.244275
KES 134.884334
KGS 90.122166
KHR 4193.512952
KMF 492.268155
KPW 937.645704
KRW 1463.259646
KWD 0.320727
KYD 0.867999
KZT 520.059599
LAK 22878.342838
LBP 93271.167197
LKR 303.144792
LRD 187.998165
LSL 18.795317
LTL 3.076251
LVL 0.630192
LYD 5.086409
MAD 10.478083
MDL 18.997794
MGA 4861.435378
MKD 61.522855
MMK 3383.819949
MNT 3540.134882
MOP 8.35093
MRU 41.443187
MUR 48.810083
MVR 16.10707
MWK 1806.090235
MXN 21.283008
MYR 4.654932
MZN 66.583684
NAD 18.795317
NGN 1767.675143
NIO 38.325549
NOK 11.53576
NPR 140.663663
NZD 1.785942
OMR 0.400943
PAB 1.041579
PEN 3.949541
PGK 4.193513
PHP 61.404399
PKR 289.239507
PLN 4.337676
PYG 8131.055634
QAR 3.798559
RON 4.978071
RSD 116.991412
RUB 108.671879
RWF 1421.834864
SAR 3.911473
SBD 8.734231
SCR 14.272055
SDG 626.663972
SEK 11.497837
SGD 1.402931
SHP 0.822333
SLE 23.68116
SLL 21846.638123
SOS 595.230868
SRD 36.978718
STD 21563.75683
SVC 9.113941
SYP 2617.626467
SZL 18.788818
THB 35.922648
TJS 11.092512
TMT 3.646401
TND 3.309016
TOP 2.440072
TRY 35.9978
TTD 7.074178
TWD 33.946439
TZS 2770.578216
UAH 43.089995
UGX 3848.553017
USD 1.041829
UYU 44.294855
UZS 13362.448044
VES 48.506662
VND 26482.251319
VUV 123.688032
WST 2.90836
XAF 655.880824
XAG 0.033274
XAU 0.000384
XCD 2.815595
XDR 0.792308
XOF 655.880824
XPF 119.331742
YER 260.379151
ZAR 18.915093
ZMK 9377.71492
ZMW 28.772658
ZWL 335.468513
  • SCS

    0.2300

    13.27

    +1.73%

  • BCC

    3.4200

    143.78

    +2.38%

  • BCE

    0.0900

    26.77

    +0.34%

  • GSK

    0.2600

    33.96

    +0.77%

  • RIO

    -0.2200

    62.35

    -0.35%

  • NGG

    1.0296

    63.11

    +1.63%

  • CMSC

    0.0320

    24.672

    +0.13%

  • CMSD

    0.0150

    24.46

    +0.06%

  • BTI

    0.4000

    37.38

    +1.07%

  • AZN

    1.3700

    65.63

    +2.09%

  • JRI

    -0.0200

    13.21

    -0.15%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    6.79

    -0.15%

  • RBGPF

    59.2400

    59.24

    +100%

  • BP

    0.2000

    29.72

    +0.67%

  • RELX

    0.9900

    46.75

    +2.12%

  • VOD

    0.1323

    8.73

    +1.52%

Abortion pill: the women of the 'resistance'
Abortion pill: the women of the 'resistance' / Photo: Handout - Dinky Pictures Production/AFP

Abortion pill: the women of the 'resistance'

It is a documentary that evokes the underground abortion networks of the 1960s but the story involves the present day.

Text size:

"Plan C," airing this week at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, is about a group of risk-taking women determined to provide access to a safe method of abortion.

Their tool: the abortion pill.

"Plan C" is both the name of the documentary and the organization at the center of the film.

It traces the uphill battle faced by the women between 2019 and 2022 to make the abortion pill more widely available to women in need.

On the one hand, the pandemic expanded the use of telemedicine and allowed for the abortion pill to be dispatched by mail.

On the other hand, abortion -- and the pill -- have now been banned in about a dozen states following a US Supreme Court ruling last year.

"Unfortunately, the anti-abortion folks have largely won," "Plan C" director Tracy Droz Tragos told AFP.

And, she added, "we haven't hit rock bottom here in the United States."

"But more folks know that medication abortion exists, more folks are resisting and making sure that people have access to it," she said. "So there is a workaround to it, there is an answer back."

Plan C, the organization, was founded by two women, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells, in 2015 to disseminate information about the abortion pill, also known as RU 486.

Plan A is contraception. Plan B is the "morning after" pill which is taken by a women after intercourse to avoid becoming pregnant.

Plan C is abortion.

Coeytaux and Wells began their efforts by testing pills that could be purchased on the black market on the internet to verify that they were authentic.

If so, they listed them on their site, plancpills.org.

- 'Like running a drug cartel' -

During the pandemic, with the abortion pills becoming more difficult to find, they put out a call for doctors willing to prescribe them by telemedicine and send them to patients by mail.

"After talking to, you know, like 150 providers, we ended up with maybe five," Wells told AFP.

Plan C provided them with technical help setting up telemedicine businesses or the cost of medical licenses.

The doctors were operating in a judicial grey area until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the abortion pill can indeed by mailed to patients.

That gave rise to a number of telemedicine services.

In June 2022, however, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion giving states the freedom to set their own rules.

Even as access to abortion pills became more restricted, a supplier agreed to continue to send them to Republican-led states where abortion had been banned, notably Texas.

An underground network formed.

"It's like running a drug cartel, in order to help people," said a woman in the film who remained anonymous to protect her identity.

Fear is palpable throughout the movie -- fear for the women using the pills and fear for those who are helping them.

Fear too for what might happen if the flow of pills is cut off entirely and women seeking to end a pregnancy are left with no solution.

Details of how the network operates are deliberately not revealed.

Faces are blurred, voices disguised and locations obscured.

"The fact that it has to feel like this nefarious underground thing is unconscionable," Droz Tragos said. "It's a tragedy."

"I hope we did enough and those folks stay safe," she added.

- 'A form of resistance' -

Finding a platform to distribute a film on such a hot-button issue has been difficult.

Some said it was "too political" and they needed to be "nonpartisan," said Droz Tragos, whose previous documentary about abortion was met with critical acclaim.

The director said she hopes "Plan C" delivers a message of hope to those who watch it, that they come away with the understanding that "they're not alone, that there is a network there to provide an option if they need it."

Since the film was made, another threat has emerged: a conservative federal judge in Texas is weighing whether to impose a national ban on the abortion pill, which was approved by the FDA more than two decades ago and has been proven to be safe and effective.

"We remain hopeful that even in the face of these unjust restrictions that access is possible and will continue to be possible," Wells said. "We believe that it's a form of resistance and that it will prevail."

T.Jamil--DT