“I don’t know if I have the courage” Reproductive Choices in Times of Zika

In this transnational study, we aimed at providing insights into women’s views and attitudes towardstheir reproductive rights during the Zika epidemic. Women of distinct nationalities and ethnicities wererecruited from various locations in Brazil, Puerto Rico, and the United States. We conducted semistructuredinterviews that suggest that participants reproductive decisions were intimately relatedto personal convictions and cultural beliefs, and their actions and thoughts were embedded in theirsociocultural norms. The majority of women interviewed communicated that it takes courage to makethe extreme, emotional, and overwhelming decision to have an abortion. The findings of this studysuggest that women from different countries and regions, and with different levels of social capital,faced the same conflicts concerning reproductive decisions. Thus, we argue for the importance ofconsidering cultural beliefs and behaviors when implementing health prevention or protection measuresto control epidemics. This epidemic may be yet another opportunity for the improvement of women’shealth by strengthening culturally sensitive family planning services, and a broad spectrum of publichealth interventions