In the first month of the coronavirus pandemic, when planes from India temporarily stopped flying, Rebecca Gomperts faced a problem. A Dutch physician and abortion specialist, she had spent the two years prior shipping the pills commonly used to end a pregnancy – mifepristone and misoprostol – to people in countries where they couldn’t access them. Now, mifepristone wasn’t available to her any more.
Gomperts is a doctor who has gone to extraordinary lengths to circumvent abortion restrictions around the world, including parking her boat in international waters outside of countries like Poland to administer abortions. So she pivoted. She trialled misoprostol-only abortions, as that drug was more easily available outside India. The results weren’t ideal, but they were much better than nothing.
