By bus, car and plane, women journey across Latin America for abortions

She’d taken an overnight bus from the countryside, then a train across the urban sprawl of São Paulo, and now she was staring out the plane window, head full of worry. There was a pink rosary in her pocket. But she didn’t see the point of praying. She feared she was a sinner, a criminal, and this trip, her first time out of Brazil, would be a secret she’d carry for the rest of her life.

Cristina was 35 years old. She was 11 weeks pregnant. She came from a conservative Christian family in a conservative Christian nation where abortion was largely illegal, so she’d decided to travel to a country where it was not and bring an end to the pregnancy she didn’t want.

Not that long ago, such a trip would have almost certainly meant a journey out of Latin America, which historically has had some of the world’s most restrictive abortion policies. But in the last five years, several of the region’s most populous countries have either decriminalized or legalized the procedure, reconfiguring the geography of abortion in Latin America and opening a pathway for women who want to end their pregnancies but live in countries where it’s prohibited.

Cristina, who allowed Washington Post journalists to join her on her trip on the condition that she be identified only by her middle name out of concern about the social stigma, is one of hundreds of Latin American women — if not thousands — who in recent years have decided to take that path, according to interviews with advocates, researchers, abortion clinicians and women across the region.

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