Bolivian teens seeking abortions meet misinformation online

SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia - When Kasandra, a teenager in Bolivia, discovered she was pregnant at 15 as a result of rape, her already troubled life fell apart.

The unwanted pregnancy was a horrible milestone in the years of sexual abuse and beatings she had endured at the hands of her stepfather that began when she was 11.

"To have a child was the worst. My stepfather was going to kick me out of the house or kill me," Kasandra, who did not want her real name used, told Context. 

Desperate to end her pregnancy in a country where abortion is allowed only if the health or life of the mother is at risk or a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, Kasandra searched online for abortion pills.

That's when she encountered a whole new set of problems.

Misinformation on social media and online is yet another obstacle for teenagers, who already get no sex education in schools, reproductive rights groups in Bolivia say.

Controversy erupted in 2023 over an attempt to include sex education in schools by law. Parents, religious groups and conservative politicians orchestrated a public campaign to portray the proposal as taboo and a threat to human values, and the measure was defeated.

Kasandra found a Facebook Marketplace page promising free misoprostol, a drug used in medication abortions, and she booked an appointment with what appeared to be a group helping pregnant women.

But instead of getting guidance on how to use the abortion pills, she found people trying to make her change her decision.

"Besides the doctor, there were two women, and one asked me if I had thought of a name I liked for the baby," she said, recalling the ordeal of four years ago.

"The other told me to listen to the heartbeat, that it would make me want it."

Abortion care obstacles

Bolivia has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the Americas, driven by high rates of child marriage and sexual violence against teenage girls.

One in three girls suffers some form of sexual violence before age 18, according to Bolivia's Public Prosecutor's Office.

In 2022, nearly 35,500 teenage pregnancies among girls ages 10 to 19 were recorded, of which 900 obtained legal abortions in public hospitals, health ministry data shows.

While abortion pills are available under Bolivia's public health care system under limited circumstances, such as for rape victims, the option is difficult to find online.

Misleading information makes it confusing to decipher if websites, clinics, Facebook ads and social media posts actually offer abortion services or are anti-abortion campaigners.

"There's a lot of misinformation and fake news in the digital world paid for by conservative and religious groups," said Ana Kudelka, director of the organization Catholics for the Right to Decide in Bolivia.

"In reality, they seek to dissuade women from their decisions and spread false and alarmist information," Kudelka said.

The sites use misleading terms such as post-abortion syndrome, which has been dismissed by experts in psychiatry and psychology, she said.

Such online sites also promote falsehoods about the risks of having an abortion and becoming infertile, she added.

Alejandra Gongora, a feminist activist and actress, said one organization she knew of offers misoprostol on Facebook Marketplace but tells those seeking information that "abortion is a sin."

"They lure women with ads offering help and, in reality, try to make them change their minds," she said.

An anti-abortion senator and several anti-abortion online declined requests for comment.

"Blamed and re-victimised"

In Kasandra's case, the help offered on Facebook for accessing abortion pills became something else altogether.

She was offered a job and housing at an evangelical church in exchange for telling other girls about her experience so they "can see how wonderful it was to be a mother despite everything," she said.

Instead, Kasandra took abortion pills obtained from a feminist group that acts anonymously when she was almost 16 weeks pregnant.

Not knowing the proper dosage to take, she suffered a haemorrhage, bled for more than 10 days and had to seek life-saving hospital emergency care.

In another case, Mariana, who did not want her surname made public, sought abortion services online for her teenage daughter who became pregnant from rape.

"We sought help on social media because accessing the health care system is scary. I think the doctors notify the church and make the cases public on purpose. I didn't want my daughter to go through all that," she said.

Her daughter eventually got an abortion at a public hospital in the city of Santa Cruz, where she had to undergo interviews with doctors who made her feel "blamed and re-victimised," she said.

While misleading information posted online is beyond the reach of traditional policing, some activists like Lupe Perez of the Rebeldia Collective, a reproductive rights group, say those involved in obstructing access to abortion should pay a price.

"The doctors, religious leaders and so-called pro-life activists who intervene in these girls' decisions should be punished by law, as they violate minors' basic rights to access to health care," she said in an interview.

Kasandra, who today is 20 years old and studying to become a nurse, says she wishes she had known earlier how to find the services she had a right to obtain.

"I just learned that everything that happened to me and is happening to other girls is against the law," she said.

(Reporting by Nathalie Iriarte; Editing Anastasia Moloney and Ellen Wulfhorst)