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Orders for abortion pills by women in seven Latin American countries with Zika outbreaks increased after health officials in those countries warned that the virus might cause severe birth defects, according to a women’s organization supplying such pills. Orders from women in Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela roughly doubled, while those from Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras went up by from 36 percent to 76 percent, researchers said in a study published Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine. (McNeil and Belluck, 6/22)

Abortions — legal or otherwise — may be increasing in Latin American countries where the Zika virus is spreading, new research suggests. The data, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide an early glimpse of a hard-to-track phenomenon that may be altering the way this unprecedented Zika outbreak is recorded in the annals of medical history. (Branswell, 6/22)

The epidemic of Zika virus has caused a spike in requests for abortion help in countries that ban or restrict abortions, researchers said Wednesday. Zika virus can causes severe birth defects if a woman is infected during pregnancy, and officials have cautioned women to avoid getting pregnant if they live in Zika-affected zones or to avoid going to affected regions if they are or could become pregnant. (Fox, 6/22)

Fearing the effects of the Zika virus on their unborn children, pregnant women in Latin America increasingly have sought out abortion pills online from a nonprofit aid agency, a new study has found. (Steenhuysen, 6/22)

Based in the Netherlands, Women on Web has a small team of doctors at its headquarters who review the requests and email back and forth with each woman to determine if there are any health issues that would prevent safe use of the drug. If there are none, the doctor then authorizes a partner group in India to ship two drugs designed to induce abortion during early pregnancy. They're mailed to the woman's home. (Aizenman, 6/22)