The Chemical Geographies of Misoprostol: The Pill Transforming Abortion Access in Latin America

Keywords: Abortion, Chemical Geography, Latin America, Pharmaceuticals, Reproductive Justice
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 67

Abstract

Chemical geography is a relatively new but loosely formed body of scholarship that examines the relationships between chemicals and the wider world. We seek to build on this to make a case for a renewed focus on pharmaceuticals through a case study of the abortion pill misoprostol, a medication that has transformed abortion access in Latin America. This research is based on interviews conducted with people working for abortion access in Mexico in Peru, two countries where abortion remains restricted. We draw together chemical geography, medical anthropology, and STS literatures to argue that chemical geography needs to be able to scale inward to understand the chemical properties of medicines while also being able to scale out to understand how medicinal effects are interwoven with and determined by global politics. Misoprostol as a chemical alone does not guarantee an effective abortion and instead ‘scaffolding’ in the form of mobility and information is required to transform misoprostol from a chemical to a safe and effective technology of abortion. First, we examine how misoprostol is made to be mobile by feminist networks. Second, we argue that in order to be useful it is not enough to access the pills, information on how to use them is required and that low-tech strategies are used to translate and disseminate information to facilitate misoprostol use.