Advocate: Women Have a Right to Know Risks of Abortion Drug • AfterAbortion.org

Melinda Tankard Reist, an author and advocate for women and girls, writes of the dangers of a plan to include RU-486 in Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for use in abortions:

Recent publicity for abortion drug RU486 has given women assurances of its safety. The drug is promoted as do-it-yourself, easy, private and ”more natural”. In this pro-RU486 spin, the voices of women harmed by the chemical cocktail have been drowned out.

“Rose,” 27, from South Australia, shares her experience in the new preface of RU-486: Misconceptions, Myths and Morals, by Renate Klein, Janice Raymond and Lynette Dumble. She was told it would be easy and quick. “The worst part … was the sheer amount of time it took for me to ‘terminate’ my baby: every large clot of blood – which I could literally feel passing through my insides … was a reminder of the fact I was terminating a baby, for which I felt hugely saddened.

“It was three days of nausea, high temperature, sweating, cramping, lots of blood, distress and swirling emotions. I would never ever go through that again.” Rose bled for another three weeks.