Just another opinion, but this one from people who should have a pretty good feel for where we are headed:
from today’s Washington Post:
An increase in abortion providers doesn’t necessarily mean there will more demand for abortions - it could just give women more choices in what provider to use.
beagledave:
The first paragraph (point 3) may have some impact - if abortion rates are lower here because there simply aren’t enough clinics for everyone who wants an abortion, adding more providers might increase the rate. However, only doctors who are able to perform abortions themselves or make arrangements for one can prescribe RU-486, so areas where no abortions are available will have no RU-486 either.
The second paragraph (point 5) seems to be based on conjecture. I’ve never heard anyone trumpeting RU-486 because it will increase the number of abortion providers.
Points 1 (most abortions in US performed at private hospitals), 2 (US does not have socialized medicine), and 4 (US is more “racially and economically diverse”) may be true, but I don’t see at all how they facilitate a rise in abortion rates.
Just to clarify, the prescribing doctor does not have to be trained in surgical abortion himself, but has to be able to get the patient one if she needs it. The doctor only has to be able to assess gestational age and diagnose an ectopic pregnancy, which any OB/GYN or just about any FP should be able to do.
I wonder how this will affect family practice. It will be hard for a doctor to hide the fact that he does medical abortions from the fringe pro-life groups–at worst, they would just have to send a woman in for an appointment to discuss the option. Someone will compile a list of doctors who do and do not offer the procedure. Some who do will lose patients, some will be picketed, some will be harrassed. The clinics might be too numerous to allow large pickets at every clinic, but the pro-lifers tend to be organized.
Any other thoughts on how the pro-life folks (from the sensible ones to the true nutcases) will react toward family practice clinics that offer RU-486?
Dr. J
FTR: I agreed that the rates MIGHT increase in rural areas where access was previously limited.
thanks for clarifying…sorry if i overstated your position.
see Eleanor Smeal(pro choice) remark in the Washington Post quoted by divemaster…see Dr. Joffe quote in my foxnews quote earlier in the thread…
But is it safer?
What is the difference betwen going to a clinic and taking the pills at home?
WHat if there were complications?
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there are “side effects” to the pill regime…(and for a surgical abortion)…not sure if one is much “safer” over the other for the woman
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Well…the pills are taken at home…over several days
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The FDA requires that a dispensing doc either be equipped to surgically handle a surgical abortion…or refer the woman to someone who can
I hear some people opposing the drug because it is likely to increase the number of abortions, because it’s likely to make them more accessible to women in rural areas without abortion clinics.
I think that’s an awful argument.
So you’re opposed to abortion, but you acknowledge that it’s legal, so if women have access to a nearby clinic, I guess they can go. But if you are a poor woman several hundred miles from the nearest clinic (as would be the case where I live), and you’ve got an old, beat-up car and little money, well, you can’t get one. And we’re glad.
So RU486 is bad because it gives ALL women the same opportunity to exert their legal rights as only SOME women have now.
?
And Zette: The fact that radical anti-choicers don’t have any good targets for their self-righteous harassment has never stopped them up here in Northern Lower Michigan. Anti-choice groups have in the past targeted our one Planned Parenthood clinic that doesn’t offer abortion services; and our local hospital, because there’s a possibility that an abortion might occasionally* be performed there, even though they don’t offer abortion-on-demand.
The pill is generally considered safer than surgical abortion - less risk of infection or surgical complications, but does have some risks of its own. But surgical abortion is generally safer than a full term pregnancy and delivery, which is exteremly safe, so we are talking miniscule numbers.
If you go to a clinic for a surgical abortion, you go into stirrups, spread you legs, have a doctor poke at you for a while, quite painfully, plus possibly run the gauntlet of pro-life protesters. Ask for a pill at your gyn and you will still need a pelvic exam, but it will be a regular pelvic. Then you take the pills (or not) in the privacy of your home (the “miscarriage” is apparently still quite painful). Most people would consider this less invasive.
Complications have been addresses numerous times.
I am pro-choice and am not sure whether this will increase the number of abortions. I think that it will increase the accessibility of abortion, but since it is a valid procedure only for the first seven weeks (and you don’t even conceive until week 2, or miss your period until week 4), I think a lot of women won’t discover (or admit, or explore their options, or come to terms with, or…) they are pregnant in time to utilize the pill. AGI has said that the decrease in abortion over the past 10 years can be linked to changes in society (more abstince, more use of bc, more stigma of abortion, more acceptability of unwed mothers) AND the decrease in the number of abortion providers.
(1) Does anyone know of the specifics of the clause requiring a doctor prescribing the pill to perform or “arrange for” a surgical abortion? Can a prescribing doctor make “arrangements” for a woman to have an abortion in a city 350 miles away and still be allowed to prescribe the pill?
(2) Who monitors this whole thing? Is there going to be a glut of “black market” RU486 available without a prescription, much like Viagra, Propecia, et al recent drugs, because the whole system is too expansive to effectively regulate?
(3) Someone (Milo?) asked what the difference is between Europe and America, wrt why pro-lifers aren’t convinced that abortion isn’t going to skyrocket, just because it didn’t in Europe. (Yikes, sorry for that awkward as hell sentence). FTR, the study was on France, not Europe. As Bob Cos asked repeatedly, who are these “health experts” who did the study? Why does it take a health expert, anyway, to generate some statistics? Also, I forget the numbers someone posted earlier, but IIRC, France has about 800 abortion clinics, and the US 2000. Do the math: France is 176.5k square miles = 1 clinic every 220 square miles. US is 3.62m square miles = 1 clinic every 1810 square miles. Granted, it’s a rough measure, but the density of abortion clinics in France is over 8 times greater than in the US. So, I can easily see how abortions in France didn’t increase… it’s not tough to get an abortion in the first place (wrt geography, at least).
(4) Many times on this board, I’ve seen statements to the effect of “We should allow surgical abortion because it’s much safer than childbirth.” I’ve always been under the impression that in modernized countries (where, I presume, the majority of abortions take place), childbirth is a largely safe procedure. Anyone have numbers on mother fatalities from childbirth?
Q
TABLE 5. Crude pregnancy-related mortality rate, * by race + and
adequacy of prenatal care & -- United States,@ 1987-1990
======================================================================
Race
Adequacy of --------------------------
prenatal care White Black Other ** All deaths
----------------------------------------------------------------------
No care 19.0 26.5 49.5 ++ 23.0
Inadequate 3.3 10.3 6.6 5.0
Adequate 2.4 7.0 3.7 3.0
Adequate plus 5.5 14.8 10.7 7.3
All levels of care 3.6 11.2 7.1 5.1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Pregnancy-related deaths among women who delivered a live-born
infant per 100,000 live births.
+ Hispanic women were classified by their reported racial group.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00048923.htm
(Fixed sidescroll. --Gaudere)
[Edited by Gaudere on 10-05-2000 at 02:56 PM]
Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but this seemed pertanent.
Women May Gain Easier Access to Abortions in France
http://www.feminist.org/other/globalwire.asp
Seems one of the reasons the pill (this pill, not the other “the pill”) is so popular in France is that abortion is only legal until week 10. Which might also explain why there hasn’t been an increase in abortion for them with the pill.
RU-486 has to be one of the best options out there to avoid pro-lifers from bombing a clinic and killing doctors intentionally. RU-486 is not anything like abortion in the sense that this pill is a contraceptive device. much like the birth control pill. who cares if people start popping them in like candy! who cares if this is going to drop our population by the thousands! this world is too overpopulated anyway. this world is full of disease and poverty to bring in another child in a family of friggen 9. instead of argueing whether abortion should remain legal, we should argue against massive immediate families that should be concidered an army. nobody makes enough money to support 10 kids and a spouse! if you do, you are the 1% of americans that gore was talking about in his presidential debate. also, nobody has the sanility handle 10 kids. i can’t even handle 1 let alone 10. thus, the invention of RU-486! =)
…tell ya what, try http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000929/hl/abortion_pill_2.html
and COUNT the number of times “abortion” is used, then come back and tell us it’s not “anything like abortion in the sense that this pill is a contraceptive device”
Dangerosa:
Not at all - RU-486 itself is only usable until week 7.
A troll, pure and simple. What are you, like 12?