More Than 150 Women Pregnant As Chile Distributes Faulty Birth Control Pills: Report

Unwanted Pregnancies As Chile Distributes Faulty Birth Control Pills: More than 150 women have reported unwanted pregnancies after taking pills distributed by the Chilean government.

A group of more than 150 women became pregnant after taking oral contraceptive pills distributed by the government in Chile. These women are preparing to file a class-action lawsuit in the country's civil courts. They are currently being represented by Corporación Miles which is a Chilean sexual and reproductive rights group.

The oral contraceptive pill the women were taking is Anulette DC. Manufactured by Silesia, the pill is a combined oral contraceptive that contains synthetic versions of hormones like estrogen and progesterone. These hormones prevent ovulation and thicken the lining of the cervix to prevent pregnancy.

Oral contraceptive pill regimens usually require taking 21 "active" pills for 21 days that contain the synthetic hormones and seven "non-active" or "placebo" pills for 7 days, during which time a person bleeds.

According to a CNN report, 139,160 packs of Anulette pills were recalled on August 24, 2020, after healthcare workers at a rural healthcare clinic complained that they had identified 6 packets of defective pills. The placebo medicines (a blue pill) were found where the active pills (a yellow pill) should have been, and vice versa leading to the mess.

Tabita Rojas, one of the women represented by Corporación Miles, said that the birth control pills she was taking were from a batch that had been recalled by the country’s public health authority. It was September of 2020 when she realised she was pregnant. "I was about to finish the second when I found out about the problem," she said as per CNN's report.

The manufacturers of the pills were notified to withdraw defective pills in August 2020. The Instituto de Salud Pública de Chile (ISP) also advised health centers to quarantine packets from the defect batches. A tweet was later sent from the ISP informing its followers of this news but the information went unnoticed due to a lack of a direct nationwide campaign, announcement, and information.

Aside from publishing details of the above recalls on social media, the ISP allegedly did very little to actually notify women of the defective pills. It was left to the civil society and local health workers to spread the news and raise the alarm.

According to the pill manufacturer's own accounts, a total of 276,890 packets of Anulette CD from the defective lots had been distributed to family planning centres across Chile.

By April 2021, many women who have been consuming the pill have come up to talk about their unwanted pregnancies and the number of these women is also expected to rise. The State has not made a statement to address the situation nor has it claimed any responsibility for this.

The South American country has very strict abortion laws that forbid a woman from terminating a pregnancy. Women are not allowed to have an abortion except for three reasons-- if the pregnancy is a result of rape, if the fetus is incompatible with life outside the womb, or if the woman's life is at risk.

Corporación Miles and its partners who are fighting for these women are now currently demanding the government to pay financial reparations to the affected women and to provide access to safe and legal abortions for those who wish to terminate their pregnancy.