The treatment of complications from induced abortion may be hampered by discriminatory attitudes of healthcare professionals in hospitals and abortion services. This article retrieved stories of institutional abuse directed at women who had an induced abortion in illegal and unsafe conditions. We interviewed 78 women admitted to a public hospital in Teresina, Brazil, due to complications from an induced abortion. A semi-structured script was used with questions about practices and itineraries of abortion and institutional violence during hospitalization. Discriminatory practices and mistreatment during care were reported by 26 women, especially among those who confessed to inducing the abortion. Moral judgment, threats to report the cases to the police, negligence in pain control, long wait for uterine curettage, and hospitalization with puerperal women were the main types of institutional violence they narrated. Cases of institutional violence in the care of induced abortion violate the healthcare service’s duty and prevent women from receiving the necessary health care.
