The New York Times today has a piece on Latina women who are inducing abortions at home. They are misusing misoprostol – a drug that’s supposed to treat ulcers – to induce cramps and then abortion, a recent study and focus group has found.

“It’s cheap but dangerous,” one woman said. Latina women choose illegal home abortions, says the Times, because of “mistrust of the health-care system, fear of surgery, worry about deportation, concern about clinic protesters, cost and shame.”

It softens the reality of abortion, one doctor said: “It turns an abortion into a natural process and makes it look like a miscarriage. … For people who don’t have access to abortion for social reasons, financial reasons or immigration reasons, it doesn’t seem like this horrible thing.”