Another Pill That Could Cause a Revolution...
Read moreAnother Pill That Could Cause a Revolution
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Could the decades-long global impasse over abortion worldwide be overcome — by little white pills costing less than $1 each?
That seems possible, for these pills are beginning to revolutionize abortion around the world, especially in poor countries. One result may be tens of thousands of women’s lives saved each year.
Five-sixths of abortions take place in developing countries, where poor sterilization and training often make the procedure dangerous. Up to 70,000 women die a year from complications of abortions, according to the World Health Organization.
But researchers are finding an alternative that is safe, cheap and very difficult for governments to restrict — misoprostol, a medication originally intended to prevent stomach ulcers.
“I feel like people must have felt when they discovered the nuclear bomb,” says Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president of Gynuity Health Projects, a nonprofit research institution on reproductive health. “This technology is world-shaking.”
This pharmaceutical approach is called “medical abortion.” In the United States and Europe it typically consists of two sets of “M” pills. The first is mifepristone, formerly known as RU-486, and then a day or two later the misoprostol.
Using the drugs in combination produces a miscarriage more than 95 percent of the time in early pregnancy. But mifepristone is difficult to obtain in much of the world, because it is used only to induce abortions. In contrast, misoprostol is very widely available and can’t easily be banned because it is also used for ulcers and can save lives of women with postpartum hemorrhages. Whatever one thinks of misoprostol for abortions, it also is a potential lifesaver for women who hemorrhage after childbirth........
