Bolivia’s clandestine abortion industry

Behind rows of $1 Nike Tshirts, bootlegged Korean novellas and reheated street food, a sign saying Dentista guards the entrance to a small commercial centre. The grungy stairway to the office, though, suggests that the man in the white coat won’t be holding a toothbrush. Posters hide the waiting room walls: Jesus supervising a surgery, the heads of a mother and her child floating above brown hills, a cartoon of the female reproductive system, a chart stating the patient’s and the doctor’s rights, a young model with his index finger touching his mouth below red letters spelling Secreto. Behind the sliding doors, the doctor and receptionist consult in soft tones.

Bolivia may produce fifty thousand tons of coca leaves a year, but the most clandestine and most dangerous market is behind these doors: The patient is one of an estimated 100 to 250 women a day in Bolivia that receive an abortion. Estimated, because only women who seek public post-abortion care – who can’t afford safer private services, who have access to public clinics, who aren’t discouraged by social castigation – are recorded. The procedure itself is not in the books, as it is, and has always been, illegal.

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