Currently, in Honduras it is impossible to access safe abortion services, since abortion is nationally restricted in any of its circumstances. It is even forbidden to access in rape cases, fetal malformation/incompatibility with life, or in the case in which the mother's life is at risk (health cause), despite this prohibition, according to information from the Ministry of Health (SESAL), in Honduras, around 26,900 {1} births of minors (between 10 - 19 years old) are registered per year, which translates directly into an average of at least 73 births of girls and teenagers between 10 and 19 per day in the country, most of whom have been the product of rape and certainly as a result of the state of non-observance of the guarantee of the sexual and reproductive rights of women, girls and youngsters.
In Honduras, abortion continues to be the second cause of hospital discharges after childbirth, only in 2018, a total of 12, 042 cases of hospital discharges due to abortion were registered; of this total of cases, 44% were classified as spontaneous leaving 66% as unspecified cases, these figures correspond to official sources of information with data obtained from the records of hospitals and public health centers at the national level, so these percentages do not include those cases in which the procedure could have been carried clandestinely. Only during the year 2020 (from March to September) a total of 312 abortions in emergency care were registered only for the city of Tegucigalpa under these same evaluations and for the city of San Pedro Sula around 483 more cases of abortion.
In response to this, NGO's created several care networks, especially feminist networks accompanying safe abortion, willing to provide information and support for access to safe abortion, including the safe line, as well as the app AB (Safe abortion)
No, in Honduras abortion is completely criminalized. In 1997, the decree that decriminalized therapeutic abortion was repealed and in early 2021, extreme right-wing groups pushed for a reform of the law that indicates that "the legal provisions that are created after the entry into force of this article that establish the opposite will be null and void", in order to prevent abortion from being legalized in the future {2}.
Also in Honduras the use, sale, distribution and dissemination of information on the Emergency Contraceptive Pill is prohibited. This prohibition occurs after the coup d'état in 2009 by ministerial agreement of the Ministry of Health due to strong pressure from religious fundamentalist / anti-abortion groups, who have also strongly influenced since 2004 to hinder the implementation of Comprehensive Sex Education in educational centers nationwide. At this moment, Honduras is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean to definitively ban the Emergency Contraceptive Pill. {3}
At present in Honduras, due to the prohibition and absolute criminalization of abortion, the services of voluntary interruption of pregnancy are not provided, only in the event of an emergency case due to an abortion in progress, unavoidable or incomplete, in this case one of The procedures in the event of incomplete abortion or retention of the remainder is the use of medications (CYTOTEC - MISOPROSTOL) or Curettage or Manual Intrauterine Aspiration (MVA), however hospitals almost always lack this last tool, either because the vacuum cleaner it is out of service or in disuse.
Only in case of emergency due to ongoing, unavoidable or incomplete abortion, the emergency personnel composed of doctors, practicing doctors, gynecologists mainly provide emergency care.
Another option is through the establishment of communication with the safe emergency line and the accompaniment networks on safe abortion, who, due to the criminalizing context, operate clandestinely.
There are no clinics, care centers or hospitals in which a safe abortion can be accessed by the woman's will.
The option is to look for feminist collectives that work on the issue and provide remote support.
In Honduras, due to the absolute prohibition, the sale or even access to medical abortion in a clandestine way, either through the purchase of drugs in pharmacies or in informal markets, or on the internet without a prescription, oscillates a price in the case of the Misoprostol of L. 500.00 each - approximately $ 20.00 USD per unit, that is, in case of needing a complete treatment only with misoprostol up to 12 weeks, a total price of L. 6,000.00 - approximately $ 250.00 USD would be handled.
Mifepristone is not available within the national territory.
There are no legal drugs available for voluntary termination of pregnancy. It is only possible to get Misoprostol (Cytotec) clandestinely in some pharmacies, informal markets or online sale.
There are clandestinely, some pharmacies and / or distribution networks that provide at quite high prices (See answer to question 6) the sale of misoprostol. Another option is the sale by prescription, and in that case, the purchase of misoprostol can be made in almost any pharmacy nationwide, but only with the use of a prescription, that is, it must be indicated by a specialist or attending physician, which is almost impossible.
Pfizer's Cytotec is the existing patent brand in different prescription pharmacies nationwide.
Mifepristone is not found nationally.
For information and support for access to safe abortion in Honduras, you can access through the Línea Segura HN where women can write directly:
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