DOI: 10.1590/1413-812320182310.14062018 3337 Abortion experience in the media: analysis of abortive paths ARTICLE shared in an online community Nanda Isele Gallas Duarte 1 Lorena Lima de Moraes 2 Cristiane Batista Andrade 3 Abstract This paper aims to analyze the narra- tives about abortion experiences available in an online community to discuss the methods and strategies to which women resort, facing the legal impossibility of voluntarily interrupting a pre- gnancy and the effects of the criminalization of induced abortion. The methodology used was vir- tual ethnography, observing the platform Women on Web, collection and analysis of 18 narratives publicly available without restrictions, selected between November 2016 and January 2017. The narratives report mixed methods to perform an abortion, with widespread use of Cytotec. Some cases include hospitals and medical clinics in the paths, whether to conduct examinations or attend to intercurrences. The internet appears as a po- pular tool to gather information, negotiate and even purchase abortive drugs, as well as a plat- form to share experiences. We concluded that the 1 Programa de Pós- narratives point to insecurities, risks, and violence Graduação em Saúde to which women are submitted in clandestine set- Pública, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sérgio ting; they show the relevance of debate on decri- Arouca (ENSP), Fiocruz. minalizing abortion in Brazil, and also reinforce R. Leopoldo Bulhões 1480, the existence of a shared abortion culture, as Manguinhos. 21041-210 Rio de Janeiro RJ Brasil. stated in other studies. [email protected] Key words Induced abortion, Health, Internet 2 Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco. Serra Talhada PE Brasil. 3 Departamento de Estudos sobre Violência e Saúde Jorge Careli, ENSP, Fiocruz. Rio de Janeiro RJ Brasil. 3338 et al. Duarte NIG Introduction en’s identities, which is configured as a research strategy against the hindrances imposed by the The voluntary interruption of pregnancy, or in- clandestine nature of the abortive experience. duced abortion, is a crime in Brazil, with the ex- Several studies8-11 addressing stigma-driv- ception of three situations: in case of pregnancy en issues such as people living with HIV/AIDS resulting from rape; when the pregnant woman and sexualities considered deviant, for example, is in a life-threatening condition, as per article have considered the Internet as a field that allows 128 of the Penal Code; and in cases of the abor- the meeting of narratives and interactions that tion of anencephalic fetuses, based on the ruling would hardly be observed in an offline environ- of the Federal Supreme Court in 2012. The legal ment. However, regarding research on induced prohibition also carries moral, religious, subjec- abortion in Brazil, this movement is still shy tive, health and gender/class/ethnicity issues, as and the few papers and academic works heading well as the symbolic meaning of interrupting an this way turn to the potential of the internet as unwanted pregnancy, which unsettles the idea of an arena for the debate on abortion: sometimes maternity historically established as “natural” to a journalistic coverage of interest12, some other the sociocultural identity of Brazilian femininity1. time, the stance of social media users13, or even Despite this scenario, national studies have discourses of social movements14. The Internet as shown that abortion is common among women a source of narratives about the abortion experi- of all walks of life, “whose prevalence increas- ence appears recently in Oliveira’s essay15, which es with women’s age, with the fact that they are discusses the presentation of the topic in the web from the urban area, have more than one child environment, where “hidden by fictitious names and are non-white”2. The National Abortion Sur- and pictures that do not allow personal identifi- vey (PNA) was held in 2010 and again in 2016, cation, the number of videos and blogs with re- and is one of the most extensive surveys ever con- ports of those who lived the experience of abor- ducted on the subject in Brazil and, given its rel- tion and found in social networks a strategy to evance, is a frequent reference in this discussion. break the silence is on the rise”15. In the 2010 edition, the study indicated that, at In this context, this paper aims to analyze age 40, more than one in five women would have narratives about abortion experiences available already had an induced abortion in urban Bra- on an online interaction platform, especially zil3,4. The 2016 PNA included a question about concerning what the shared stories tell about abortion in the previous year and thus conclud- abortive paths, including the list of methods ed that, in 2015, 416,000 women living in urban used, their temporal sequence and their effects, areas caused an abortion5. In other words, crim- as proposed by Heilborn et al.16. The questions inalization of abortion has failed to produce an that guided our contact with field research were: effect on the prevention of induced abortions. how does illegality affect women’s experience The debate on the subject has been considered with abortion? What devices fill the gap left by by the fields of public health and human rights, the State’s lack of formal and legal assistance; especially from the understanding of unsafe abor- What resources, methods, and people are mo- tion risks to women’s lives and health. Data from bilized along the way? This issue dialogues with the World Health Organization (WHO)6 estimate the contemporary debate on health governance, that 22 million unsafe abortions are carried out especially with the conception of governance that annually in the world, of which 98% are in devel- considers the multiple stakeholders and social oping countries, with 47,000 deaths due to com- dynamics involved in the collective action and in plications resulting from clandestine procedures6. the political and institutional arrangements for In Brazil, most research that seeks to analyze decision-making that are not restricted to the the perceptions of women who have abortions State’s structure17-19. This articulation also opens has been performed in hospitals7. Thus, research- a space for reflection on the performance, scope, ers on the subject have pointed out the need to and limits of social networks, which facilitate the expand the studies through new paths that leave understanding of society “from the relational ties the hospitals and approach, for example, “the do- between individuals, which would reinforce their mestic space, women’s and traditional knowledge, capacities for action, sharing, learning, fundrais- men’s participation in the decision for abortion”7. ing and mobilization”20. Socialization, dispute, This paper seeks to contribute to this effort cooperation and confluence networks that, ac- and, in this regard, finds on the Internet a possi- cording to Castells21, find in the new ICTs the bility of collecting narratives that protect wom- possibility of expanding their capacities, a sub- 3339 Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 23(10):3337-3346, 2018 23(10):3337-3346, Coletiva, & Saúde Ciência ject pertinent to this analysis, given our object of statements from 151 countries, and Brazil is one study. with the highest number of published reports, with 1,027 stories (as of March 18, 2017). This sharing platform is understood here as a virtual Methodological approaches community built on affinities of interests, knowl- edge, and projects in a mutual process of cooper- The path taken to conduct observations, material ation and exchange, as elaborated by Lévy24, an collection and analysis was virtual ethnography. interactive space that integrates broader social Hine22 affirms that ethnography can be mobi- networks, with stakeholders and devices that lized to achieve the meanings of technology and interplay both online and offline, as will be ex- its underpinning cultures, while they are being plained in the discussion. structured by it. This study is in line with authors During the observation, we used the cate- who conceive the network as “an interstitial site gorization available in the platform concerning where the boundaries between online and offline the methods adopted to perform the voluntary flow and interact”23, an approach that interests interruption of pregnancy as criteria for the col- based on the understanding that the online nar- lection of narratives. “Herbs, massages and oth- ratives about singular experiences with abortion er methods”, “medicines”, “clinics and hospitals provide representations on a phenomenon with through surgery” and “by my own means” are the offline materiality. We recognize that an element possibilities provided to women to classify the to be debated is the silent feature of the observa- methods used during abortion. We collected five tion undertaken, that is, without a manifest pres- reports associated with each of these categories ence of the researcher18. In this case, this decision from November 2016 to January 2017, consid- is a corollary to the very structuring of the site ering those who were the first to show up when studied, which prevents commenting statements. selected. Thus, we sought to preserve some ran- The stages of the research included: (a) a domness in the collection while at the same time search for public communities to share accounts ensuring some diversity vis-à-vis the stories, al- on abortion and define the platform to be ana- lowing us to know more details about the paths lyzed; (b) observation and collection of stories associated to each of the possibilities provided. and (c) analysis from the guiding questions. Initially, twenty narratives were selected, but The search for spaces for sharing stories about a new evaluation revealed that two texts were abortion has indicated sites that convey informa- classified in more than one category, which led tion about medical abortion and whose portals to a final group of eighteen stories.