Misoprostol Has Potential For 'Gynecological Revolution' In Abortion Access, New York Times Columnist Writes

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 03 Aug 2010 - 2:00 PDT


Researchers are finding that the medication misoprostol is an alternative to surgical abortion "that is safe, cheap and very difficult for governments to restrict" and could save "tens of thousands of women's lives ... each year," New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes.

Already "very widely available" in most countries because it is used to treat stomach ulcers and postpartum hemorrhages, misoprostol is "beginning to revolutionize abortion around the world, especially in poor countries," where five-sixths of abortions take place, Kristof adds. According to the World Health Organization, as many as 70,000 women die annually from complications of abortions.

Medical abortion usually consists of two pills -- mifepristone, followed by misoprostol one or two days later. Marie Stopes International reports that the number of medical abortions performed worldwide is "surging," although the method accounts for only one in eight abortions in the U.S., Kristof writes. When used together, mifepristone and misoprostol end pregnancy 95% of the time in its early stages. However, mifepristone is "difficult to obtain in much of the world" because, unlike misoprostol, "it is used only to induce abortions," Kristof writes. When taken alone, misoprostol's efficacy drops to 80% to 85%, which "may sound low, but it's typically far better and safer than alternatives that women turn to," according to Kristof.

He also argues that "it would be tough to carry out a ban on medical abortion," as the drug "can be found all over the world, from Internet sites to over-the-counter pharmacies in Delhi." Kristof writes, "In India, misoprostol costs just pennies per pill." He notes that misoprostol is "likely to become even more widely available" because WHO in 2009 "expanded its uses as an 'essential medicine' to include treatment of miscarriages and incomplete abortions."

Although some countries "have tried to tighten access to misoprostol because of its use for abortion, ... curbing access to misoprostol would mean that more women would die of hemorrhages," Kristof writes. He concludes, "As word spreads among women worldwide about what a few pills can do, it's hard to see how politicians can stop this gynecological revolution" (Kristof, New York Times, 7/31).

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