Nope, just curious. “back-alley abortion” and “coat hanger” are permanently associated with each other, but I’ve just never seen the details explained.
Thanks, that write-up was helpful. Not clear though whether the abortion happens because the fetus is infected, or because the uterus is infected.
Although I’ve never done a back-alley abortion, AIUI, the technique is similar to a D&C (dilation and curettage) only much simpler/cruder than would be done in a hospital.
In the late 1980s, I knew a woman who worked in the pathology lab at a local hospital (in a city that had an abortion clinic, BTW). She saw evidence of self-induced abortions all the time anyway, and the most common method was
a canister vacuum cleaner. The results were usually very grisly; I was personally surprised that something like this would work.
True dat. To do a first trimester abortion, all it takes is the same equipment that’s used to do a diagnostic D & C (dilation and curettage), which is done routinely all over for dysfunctional uterine bleeding evaluations. A dilator is used to open up the cervix enough to insert a curette, which scrapes out the uterine lining for evaluation. Quite simple, and if basic medical sanitation procedures are employed, pretty damn safe.
In the ‘coathanger’ abortion, the coathanger wire substitutes for both the dilator and the curette, in horribly, horribly inadequate and inappropriate ways.
I was always under the impression it was to puncture the amniotic fluid sac.
Having said that, I went and researched it a bit to make sure that was why. While reading, I came across several websites that describe what back alley abortions are, the risks of them, the dangers to the mother, etc.
Reading that made me stronger pro-choice. Women shouldn’t have to do things like that to terminate a pregnancy if they are going to terminate it anyway.
The last time I answered this question, my reply was cornfielded and whoever it was who moderated said I should not be dispensing medical advice. Google “dilating rods” and learn of sterile procedure and then back-think how you would proceed if coathangers, and not dilating rods, was what you happened to have on hand. A speculum would be highly useful.
Well, yeah. I donate what I can afford to donate to Planned Parenthood and to that consortium that’s trying to take up the slack created by the reinstatement of the gag rule. It needs to be legal in order to be safe. The coat-hanger thing (or so I was taught) ranged from being akin to emergency battlefield surgery performed by underequipped doctors under bad conditions (at best) to extremely dangerous quackery & butchery performed by opportunistic assholes who didn’t know or care about sterile fields or much of anything else.
