Discussing increasing reliance on RU-486 by American women, WaPo interviews a nurse who opted to end a pregnancy by taking the drug:
"It was something I could do at home and be with my husband," Gilbert said of taking the pill. "It was a decision we made together alone, and we were able to take care of it this way alone. It was just a much more private affair."
She added: "I wouldn't say it was easy -- it's never easy to terminate a pregnancy. But in the grand scheme of things, it was much more pleasant than a surgical procedure."
Another bit of good news:
The pill, often called "miffy" after its chemical name mifepristone and brand name Mifeprex, also has helped slow the decline in abortion providers, as more physicians who previously did not perform the procedure discreetly start to prescribe the pill. For example, Ruth Lesnewski, a family physician in New York, did not perform abortions until mifepristone was approved.
"It allows abortion to happen in a more private, secure setting -- a doctor's office and a woman's home, rather than an easily targeted clinic," she said. "It's been a surprisingly smooth and rewarding experience for such a fraught area of life. My patients really tremendously appreciate being able to end an unwanted pregnancy privately and quickly."
1 comment:
This is a Return To the Future moment. The oldest medical document known to mankind, an Egyptian papyrus, is a formula for preventing conception/inducing abortion (I don't remember the recipe except that it included crocodile dung. I don't know that it worked but it gives you some idea of how desperately it was wanted.)
Wisewomen, village herbalists, and more recently (meaning 19th century) botanic medical practitioners all had medications to "correct blocked menstrual flow." It was only the takeover of medicine by males that surgery became the accepted alternative to drug therapy.
--xan
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