It’s not long before the do-it-yourself abortion pill Mifegymiso will be available in Canada. Expected to be prescribed as early as this summer, the combination of two medications, taken a day or two apart, usually at home, is considered an effective way to end the life of pre-born children up to 7 weeks old.
A recent article in the National Post presents the regulations around the pill, and the response. Pro-abortion groups are angry about the need for this medication to be prescribed by a physician, as well as the fact that doctors may choose to have the patient ingest the first dose in their office. In apparent evidence of their desire to make this a game-changer for easing access to abortion in Canada, they want to ignore the warnings of potential harm with which these drugs come. Blood infections, hemorrhages, one (non-fatal) heart attack – it is no wonder this drug took 4 years to be approved, “due to insufficient or missing safety data”. You would think a group that claims to be focused on women’s health would be a little concerned with safety data.
In addition, the concern is raised that prescription of the pill requires a doctor appointment, with an ultrasound to determine the gestational age of the baby. Again, if we’re concerned about women, we should insist she see an actual doctor, shouldn’t we? If the pregnancy is farther along than she claims, complications also increase. Taking drugs designed to make you bleed quickly, painfully and heavily is not recommended for just anyone.
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A further point of contention for abortion access advocates is the doctor’s option to have the first dose administered in the office. These advocates argue that the purpose of these drugs should be to revolutionize abortion access in Canada. This “revolution” would allow anyone, anywhere, to get these drugs quickly and quietly in the mail, and deal with the aftermath in the privacy of her own home, where she can pass it off as a natural miscarriage or never tell anyone at all.
Unfortunately, this free-for-all undermines actual care for women. To suggest it is unreasonable to see the patient take the medication says they are willing to open up vulnerable women to likely abuses of such a drug. This is not just prescribing a medication someone’s teenager may sneak to get high, this is choosing to end a developing life. It seems fairly important that the woman asking for the drug is in fact the woman using the drug. Otherwise, if you have a girlfriend, daughter, or student you accidentally impregnated you could find a way to get these drugs and then slip a few pills into their smoothie orpass them the “antibiotic” their doctor prescribed. So much for “choice.”
The abortion pill is already a travesty in Canada. In the womb, the place that should be the safest for a pre-born child, she is deliberately targeted by a medication that thins the uterine lining on which she depends and then, while she’s barely hanging on, follows up with strong contractions to force her out of her haven into arms waiting with a hand on the toilet paper roll and an elbow on the flush handle. To suggest that we still aren’t making it convenient enough for a woman to kill her baby goes beyond all comprehensible moral standards. If other contract killers had half these conveniences, you can bet the mafia would have taken over the world.
LifeNews Note: Anna Nienhius is the Research and Policy coordinator for WeNeedaLAW.ca.
