Fears of serious and debilitating birth defects caused by the Zika virus has spurred a huge increase in the number of South American women seeking information about obtaining abortions - a medical procedure that is heavily restricted in the region.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine says many countries have had a 33 percent increase in the number of requests for terminations.  The number is even higher in Brazil - the epicenter of the Zika crisis - where the demand for abortions has doubled.

"This apparent increase in making requests for abortion looks plausible and is not surprising given the situation with the epidemic and societal pressures," said Professor Jimmy Whitworth from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in an interview with the BBC.

Most governments have advised women not to get pregnant due to the risk of babies being born with microcephaly, which is characterized by abnormally small skulls and brains.  These "very hollow" messages to delay pregnancy wound up generating "fear, anxiety and panic with no means to act on it", said Dr. Abigail R.A. Aiken, a reproductive health researcher at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, and the lead author of the study.

But despite the undeniable fact that it takes two to get pregnant, these governments haven't spent nearly as much telling men to put a sock on it.  This would actually be helpful, as it would cut down on pregnancies and transmission of the Zika virus which is in most cases spread by mosquitoes and also in small numbers by sexual contact.

With Abortion illegal or restricted in Latin America, many women are turning to alternative providers - safest among them are groups such as "Women on Web", which counsels women on the Internet and then delivers pills to end a pregnancy.  The pleas to the group are alarming and urgent.

"I'm very concerned, I'm two months pregnant and in my country Zika has been detected," said a woman in Peru, where Abortion is mostly illegal.  "We are all very alarmed and I do not want have a sick baby, please, I do not want to continue my pregnancy because it is very dangerous."

"I contracted Zika four days ago," wrote a woman from Venezuela, with equally unfair restrictions on women's reproductive rights.  "I love children, but I don't believe it is a wise decision to keep a baby who will suffer.  I need an abortion.  I don't know who to turn to.  Please help me ASAP."

Women on Web is an offshoot of Women on Waves, which originally sailed a Dutch boat to countries that outlawed abortion, took women on board, and performed abortions outside a the territorial waters.