At least 140 women are suffering from the consequences of the Chilean government’s inadequate attempt to deal with a public health failure–the issuance of defective birth control pills. With abortion illegal in Chile except for some specific cases such as rape, most of the affected women are forced to shift their former future plans to accommodate the baby, regardless of their financial situation. The executive director of Miles, a Chilean reproductive health organization, claims the pregnancy these women are cornered into having is a violation of their reproductive rights. The investigation into these defective birth control pills began when Miles suspected the government of such negligence.
The government had been aware of this issue since August, but had not taken any significant actions to inform the public about the health system’s mistake. After pressure from Miles for the government to be held accountable, almost 140,000 packets of Anulette CD birth control pills were recalled on August 24. Only the active pills in a birth control packet contain the hormones necessary for preventing pregnancy. Birth control packets typically contain three weeks of active pills and one week of placebo pills to imitate a natural menstrual cycle. But the pills in the Anulette CD packets were not laid out in the proper order and the mix-up between active and placebo pills in packet slots warranted the recall. Only a week later, another 140,000 Anulette CD packets were recalled–this time because of missing and crushed pills.
Information release on the recall was inadequate since the information was only available on a rarely-visited government website. The government also showed no attempt at publicizing the recall through press conferences or through targeting the information at women. The government has fined the manufacturer $92,000 for “quality problems,” but the companies that produce Anulette CD, Silesia and Andrómaco, remain the main source of birth control manufacturing for the government.
In an email statement, the manufacturer claimed that healthcare workers should have been able to “visually identify any anomaly before handing over” the pills to the women. The manufacturer also points out that the unintended pregnancies may be a consequence of expected yearly statistical error in birth control. However, Miles, the same organization that found the pill issue, has found 140 women willing to sue the government in a class action lawsuit because they believe the recalled pills to be the cause of their pregnancy.
Many hope to see this incident bring about change for reproductive rights in Chile. Paul Ávila-Guillén, the executive director of Women’s Equality Center, emphasized, “We’ve never seen such a systematic failure, that lasted as long as the case in Chile, with such severe consequences.” Claudia Mix, an opposition lawmaker who demanded the government to explain the mistake, asserted that “There’s one entity that’s primarily responsible for distributing defective birth control pills through the public health care system and that’s the Chilean state. The government cannot wash its hands of this.”
In Latin America, this incident brings the movement to give women better access to abortions back under the spotlight. This issue is brought back into focus during a potentially volatile year for Chile. On top of the government’s difficulties with the current pandemic, Chile will also be choosing a new Congress and president in an election later this year.
