Misoprostol

Misoprostol

Misoprostol

World Health Organization Pushes Misoprostol Abortions Hurting Women

By authorizing the use of a single drug, the World Health Organization has simultaneously raised hopes for saving thousands of mothers" lives and raised fears that the drug will also be used to kill perhaps millions of unborn children. Misoprostol is used to help stop bleeding during delivery, the main cause of maternal deaths, but it can also be used to induce at-home abortions, which are very dangerous, particularly in rural areas that lack primary or emergency medical care.

The fears are grounded in the fact that WHO approved use of the drug by unskilled personnel and that both WHO and Gynuity Health Projects, the organization which sought the drug's approval, advocate the use of misoprostol for abortion outside the hospital setting.

WHO says its "work over the past three decades has contributed significantly to the emergence and wide acceptance of the current recommended regime" of medical abortion, according to one of its recent reports. WHO has trained midwives throughout the developing world to perform abortions in order to eliminate the need for physicians, the report says. In Vietnam alone, the trials included 1,734 women, and its misoprostol-induced abortions are conduced up to 63 days, WHO says. Ref. Source 4