In the weeks following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a young doctor in Germany sees that abortion pills are urgently needed in Ukraine. And she wants to help. But getting the drugs into the country means going through Poland, which has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. So, she gets creative. What unfolds is a high-stakes, covert-operation run by a group of strangers. Strangers across 4 continents each taking a risk - most never having been involved in abortion care before, and working with people they’d never met - deciding they cannot leave women without urgent, time-sensitive medication. And everyone deciding: who to trust?
I was a freelance reporter, pitching this story to Radiolab and NPR’s Rough Translation, and reporting it for over a year. I travelled across Europe and into Ukraine in October 2022 to interview anonymous sources. This work was heavily informed by my pre-journalism work in sexual and reproductive health. This mini-series was in collaboration with hosts Molly Webster and Gregory Warner, as well as editor Brenna Farrel and and producers Tessa Paoli and Dan Girma, among others.
I was a freelance reporter, pitching this story to Radiolab and NPR’s Rough Translation, and reporting it for over a year. I travelled across Europe and into Ukraine in October 2022 to interview anonymous sources. This work was heavily informed by my pre-journalism work in sexual and reproductive health. This mini-series was in collaboration with hosts Molly Webster and Gregory Warner, as well as editor Brenna Farrel and and producers Tessa Paoli and Dan Girma, among others.
Produced for: Radiolab x NPR Rough Translation
Role: Reporter
Illustration by: Oksana Drachkovska