The women looking outside the law for abortions
Accessing abortion has become increasingly difficult in parts of the US. As a result, a growing number of reproductive rights activists say it is time American women learn the facts about "self-managing abortion" with pills.
Kate could tell something was wrong. She'd been feeling nauseous for days and her body just felt different. The 27-year-old massage school student and her boyfriend were supposed to leave on a short road trip together, but before they hit the highway, she asked him to drive to a local drugstore.
Kate, which is not her real name, bought a pregnancy test and took it in the store bathroom. It was positive.
"I probably lost all my colour," she recalls. "I was pretty devastated."
Over the six-hour drive that followed, the young couple wrestled with the decision in front of them - to become parents or not. Kate was open to the idea, but as a full-time student doing odd jobs on the side to make ends meet, she was also broke. Her boyfriend told her he wasn't ready to become a father.
"I struggle putting food on the table and I'm in debt," she says. "I just didn't see how I could justify putting a kid in that situation."
The nearest abortion clinic was hours away, and the attendant who answered the phone told her that because she was less than 10 weeks along, she could terminate the pregnancy with pills - one dose of the drug mifepristone to take at the clinic, and a second medication, misoprostol, to take at home.
She was also told it would cost nearly $800. Kate was shocked.
"It would have taken everything I have. I don't know how I would have paid rent."
So she did what thousands of women around the globe do every year - she decided to try to have an abortion on her own.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45970356
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