Ru 486 Misconceptions Myths and Morals - ressourcesfeministes

RU 486The message here is that women and medical personnelin different cultures and in different social contexts will reactdifferently to pain. In assessing the degree of pain as acomplication in these studies, we found that we had to addressthe perception of pain and who was perceiving it. In moststudies, the dominant evaluator of pain is that of the medical‘culture’ which often minimizes women’s pain, reporting itas ‘insignificant,’ ‘acceptable,’ and/or ‘tolerable.’ Almos t allstudies, whatever the protocol, repor t that womenexperience pain, but most often classify it as mild to moderate.When PGs are added, severe pain is more frequentlyreported in combination with other gastro-intestinal sideeffects. However, this pain and gastro-intestinal effects areoften attributed to the pregnancy itself. ‘…it is difficult todetermine if these symptoms are related to the drugadministration or to the pregnancy itself (Ulmann et al.,1987:278).More recent studies often compare the pain of combinedRU 486/PG with pain experienced after the use of PGs alone(e.g. Silvestre et al., 1990:647). This is an outrageouscomparison since many researchers have candidly stated thatthe use of PGs alone for abor tion is intolerable because ofthe associated pain (see Chapter Four). A more honestassessment of pain would be to compare RU 486/PGtermination to the pain of conventional abortion, not to atreatment that has been largely abandoned because of itsextremely painful effects (Zheng, 1989:19).The unarticulated message about pain in many of thesestudies is that female pain is expected. Pain is reported bymost women, but more and more pain is interpreted as lessand less, because the threshold for female pain is constantlyraised. For example, many of the women in these studiesexperienced pain for several days/weeks until the abortionwas complete. Thus we are talking about prolonged, nottransient pain, although this is rarely noted. Much of themedical journal commentary on pain dismisses it in one brief42