Ru 486 Misconceptions Myths and Morals - ressourcesfeministes

The Role of Prostaglandins: Known and Unknown Dangersagent in 73 per cent of 525 pregnant women seekingemergency treatment for uterine bleeding in 1990 (p. 1535).Abortion was incomplete ‘about half of the time’, therebyexposing women and their fetuses to untold health perils.Within the preliminary report of misoprostol abor tionfailures, and additional to the emergency medicalrequirements of the women, five babies were born with largeskin and bone defects on the frontal part of the skull that leftthe brain exposed. Surgical closure of the open defect wasattempted within four days of birth but all infants experiencedconvulsions and infections (one fatal). These are merely theshort-term complications, but as Schönhöfer, too, concluded,any society that prohibits legal abortion will encounter illicitdrug usage to induce uterine expulsion. We would arguethat RU 486 plus a small dose of misoprostol is no more immuneto ‘illegal’ use than misoprostol has been as a single drug.Perhaps Etienne Baulieu did not choose enisoprost forhis most recent experiment because of its higher incidenceof gastrointestinal side-effects. Alternatively, he could havechosen to extend the data of Swahn et al., 1990, who, almosta year earlier, had published abortion details of RU 486 withthe oral PG analogue, 9-methylene PGE 2. The latter wouldcertainly have been a more conscionable approach than hispromotion of misoprostol as an abortifacient, an applicationfor which it is neither intended nor successful. Instead, inhis self-ordained ‘work to give women more choices’(Delaney, 1991), he has opted to establish yet another healthhazard for women from the unknown effect(s) of a furtheruntested chemical cocktail. At this stage we can only askhow many more health hazards will be contrived beforeRU 486/PG-based abortion is finally abandoned—at worsta misconception, at best, a myth?111