New abortion pill system could threaten third world women

Westminster, 13 September 2001--The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has suggested that the introduction of home-alone abortion indicates that there are poor facilities and unhelpful staff attitudes at many abortion clinics. The procedure is a development of the usage of the RU-486 abortion pill.

Paul Tully, SPUC general secretary, said: "This news suggests that women feel poorly cared for at abortion clinics. Most people undergoing a medical procedure would choose the best circumstances for that procedure in terms of medical facilities and staff. However, women could be choosing home-based abortion because the facilities and the attitude of staff at abortion clinics mean that they would rather endure what can be a traumatic sequence of events on their own-away from the clinics.

"The more sinister aspect of this development is that the same system will be used to try to promote RU-486 in developing countries, where its side-effects, such as haemorrhage, are potentially fatal.

"Proponents of the RU-486 abortion pill are working hard to promote this drug in the third world. Professor Etienne-Emile Beaulieu, who invented RU-486, said from the outset that the principal intended users of the drug were women in developing countries."

Today's Daily Mail describes how the British Pregnancy Advisory Service is testing a technique involving women taking doses of RU-486 and misoprostol to procure abortions away from a hospital, clinic or surgery.