On 25 August, the government announced that it would legalise the home-use of the second pill taken during a medical abortion in England.
The government reported this as a compassionate move, noting that ‘women can begin to miscarry before they have reached their home’ after leaving the clinic. Critics say it could make taking abortion pills as ‘commonplace as taking a paracetamol’.
Lesley Regan, President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), is on record as claiming that having an abortion is no different to having a bunion removed, and is reported to be delighted at the government’s plan.
The painful truth
Like many early miscarriages that happen at home, seeing the tiny remains of the preborn can be shocking and certainly not something in which to delight. One young girl’s experience of having a medical abortion at home was described by her boyfriend: ‘The hours of pain she suffered culminated in one trip [to the loo] from which she didn’t return. All I heard was sobs. Drained of energy, she couldn’t even cry with the force the pain deserved. I soon discovered that it wasn’t the pain the sobs were for, it was for what she had seen in the toilet. A recognisable shape. Then flushed away.’
The facts
Peer-reviewed evidence shows that medical abortion is not as safe as a surgical procedure. The largest and most accurate study of medical abortions, a Finnish study of 42,600 women, found that women had four times as many serious complications after medical abortions than surgical abortions. Research by pro-abortion authors found that for women over seven weeks, the failure rate (of the pills) can be up to 33%.
Self-administering abortion pills is risky. A leading campaigner for abortion, obstetrician Peter Boylan said: ‘There are serious dangers when women take [abortion pills] without supervision. We have knowledge of women who have taken them in excessive dosage and that can result in catastrophe for a woman such as a rupture of the uterus with very significant haemorrhage. If that happens in the privacy of a woman’s home, that can have very, very serious consequences for women.’
One peer-reviewed study of self-administering pills found that 63% had incomplete abortion, 68% required medical intervention.
There is no data showing that women are having problems with the current arrangements. Campaigners rely instead on (limited) anecdotal evidence. Bleeding begins within four to six hours after taking the second of the two pills. Surgical abortion is an option for those who cannot get home before bleeding begins, including those who cannot access medical services quickly after the abortion.
Why change?
This change in the law will make abortions seem easy, using nurses, pharmacists and Internet suppliers. It is cheaper to pay for a couple of pills than a surgical abortion. Abortions are moving from unsupervised back-streets into unsupervised bathrooms.
