Research, data analysis, and commentary on abortion and declining birth rates.
It's not just about ‘safety’ – the abortion pill (mifepristone and misoprostol) is medically safe for the woman; serious complications from medical abortion including hospitalisation, blood transfusion, major surgery, or death are rare. Arguing for changes to the legal and regulatory control of medical abortion solely based on safety is a very weak argument. Now... Continue Reading →
Abortions at home data in tab T2 of this file at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2021
Medical abortion doesn't always work; it is well established that MA has an expected treatment failure rate of about 6%. Which means that as many as 1-in-17 pregnant women using abortion pills will subsequently need hospital treatment for complications arising from an incomplete abortion. Ranbaxy (UK) Limited is the manufacturer of Medabon, the mifepristone/misoprostol combination... Continue Reading →
Gynuity Health Projects, a pro-abortion activist organisation, recently published results from its own study into the safety and efficacy of telemedicine abortion. Two key findings are: Six percent of women using abortion pills at home, subsequently needed hospital treatment because of complications related to the abortion, a rate of 1-in-17. Four percent of women using... Continue Reading →
Marie Stopes Australia (MSA) says that more than 5% of the medical abortions it provides, fail to complete. Meaning that 1-in-20 women will have fragments of the baby and/or placenta remaining in their womb after taking both sets of the tablets, mifepristone and misoprostol. These women will need to seek further treatment to prevent ongoing... Continue Reading →
On 25 May 2021, Public Health Scotland (PHS) released its official abortion statistics for the year ending December 2020. You may have already read that in 2020 there were a total of 13,815 abortions, the highest annual total since 2008, and that 36% of these were repeat abortions, which continues an increasing trend year-on-year. In this short... Continue Reading →
Caroline Gazet, UK Clinical Director for MSI Reproductive Choices, says that she is both saddened and angered by the term ‘DIY abortion’. This made me smile. It is ironic for a senior member of the Marie Stopes team to complain about others using such terminology to describe abortion at-home when they themselves are fixated on... Continue Reading →
Abortion supporters go to great lengths to assure women that at early gestations, their ‘pregnancy’ is nothing more than a clump of cells, that it is not yet a baby. This article shows how a baby develops in utero, from the moment of conception. On 30 March 2020, Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for... Continue Reading →
When your global strategy is to promote and enable self-managed medical abortion, even in places in which the national laws prohibit this, then you need catchy slogans to justify your actions to your supporter base. How about these two: Harm reduction.Conscientious provision. In most countries, even in those in which the abortion law is relatively... Continue Reading →
There’s increasing debate about the lack of official provision of abortion services across Northern Ireland, with concerns being raised that women are risking their health and safety by turning to the backstreets. I think the rhetoric around ‘backstreet’ abortion is flawed. It is more likely that when official abortion services are not being provided, or... Continue Reading →
On International Safe Abortion Day, September 28th, Marie Stopes International held a public webinar, during which one of its presenters stated that self-managed medical abortion using drugs from pharmacies across India is not legal. This is important because MSI has been reporting for many years that its operation in India provides at least 40% of... Continue Reading →
In November 2018, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (Great Britain) published a study into the safety and acceptability of medical abortion through telemedicine provided by Women on Web in Poland. This study noted: a lack of certainty in the self-reporting of gestational age; an increasing need for surgical intervention as GA increased; and... Continue Reading →
Over many years, there has been a slow, steady increase in the proportion of abortions which occur at lower gestational age. The percentage of abortions at <10 weeks in 2009 was 75% and this had risen to 82% by 2019. Data released by the Department of Health and Social Care show these data in more... Continue Reading →
Over many years, there has been a trend towards the preferred use of medication for abortions across England and Wales. DHSC data show that in 2008 the method mix for abortion was 62% surgical and 37% medical. In 2013-14, the proportional use of each method is equal, and since then medical abortion has been the... Continue Reading →
