In Chile, an accidental abortion is the only kind of abortion that isn’t considered a crime.
The Miles Foundation, a reproductive rights NGO, in conjunction with Grey Chile, an advertising agency, came up with the idea to produce satirical tutorials on DIY abortion.
The staff psychologist at the Miles Organization, Leslie Nicholls, reports that while the videos may seem extreme to an outsider, suicidal thoughts and acts of desperation are actually quite common for some of these women.
One of Nicholls’ patients’ “doctor recommended she climb stairs every day so she would lose the baby. If that failed, he said, pray to God to take its life.”
The Miles Organization hopes that Chile will be shamed into reforming the “strictest abortion law in the world.” Chile is one of six countries that bans women from getting an abortion under any circumstances, and doing so is punishable by five years in prison.
According to the Human Rights Watch, an estimated 35% of pregnancies end in abortion in Chile, about 160,000 per year. But official numbers only show an average of 33,000 abortions, and Nicholls comments: “We don’t have 33,000 people in jail every year, so that’s at least curious.”
This ad campaign was intended to get people talking… did it work?
The Miles Foundation, a reproductive rights NGO, in conjunction with Grey Chile, an advertising agency, came up with the idea to produce satirical tutorials on DIY abortion.
Did the Ads Go Too Far?
This project features three videos that use different scenarios to highlight the extremes Chilean women go to if they want an abortion: throwing herself into traffic, sabotaging her heels so she’d trip and land on a fire hydrant, and strategically finding the tallest staircase without security cameras to fall downThe staff psychologist at the Miles Organization, Leslie Nicholls, reports that while the videos may seem extreme to an outsider, suicidal thoughts and acts of desperation are actually quite common for some of these women.
One of Nicholls’ patients’ “doctor recommended she climb stairs every day so she would lose the baby. If that failed, he said, pray to God to take its life.”
The Only Legal Abortion In Chile Is An “Accidental” One
The Miles Organization hopes that Chile will be shamed into reforming the “strictest abortion law in the world.” Chile is one of six countries that bans women from getting an abortion under any circumstances, and doing so is punishable by five years in prison.
According to the Human Rights Watch, an estimated 35% of pregnancies end in abortion in Chile, about 160,000 per year. But official numbers only show an average of 33,000 abortions, and Nicholls comments: “We don’t have 33,000 people in jail every year, so that’s at least curious.”
This ad campaign was intended to get people talking… did it work?