Another revolutionary pill? - Building Gender Balanced Business

Abortion: a risky business

Five out of six abortions are held in developing countries which accentuates the inherent risks of the procedure.

Poor sterilization and a lack of training increase the danger of the intervention.

The other problem with abortion is that it is often illegal, forcing women to abort in even riskier conditions.

The World Health Organization reports that up to 70,000 women die annually because of abortions and eventual complications.

A possible solution?

Researchers have found an alternative that has many upsides: it’s cheap, safe and almost impossible to regulate.

It’s a pill called misoprostol and its initial use is to ward off stomach ulcers.

When combined with another pill, mifepristone, the miscarriage rate exceeds 95% during the early stages of pregnancy.

Mifepristone is only used for abortions which means that it is often unobtainable but misoprostol can also save the lives of women who hemorrhage after childbirth and is consequently much more widespread.

When misoprostol is used alone, it is only effective 80 to 85% of the time which makes it far more reliable than most alternatives.

“I feel like people must have felt when they discovered the nuclear bomb.”
Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president of Gynuity Health Projects

The miscarriage produced by the pills is indistinguishable from a natural one making sanctions against abortion impossible.

The only real question left unanswered is how late into pregnancy is this “medical abortion” feasible.

In the US the pills can be taken up to nine weeks of gestation.
In the UK, the pills can be taken up to 24 weeks.

Misoprostol is starting to spread

In India, misoprotol only costs pennies per pill.

Indian companies are even producing both “M pills”, selling them for less than $5 and shipping them throughout the world.

Brazil and a couple of other countries have attempted to make access to misoprostol more difficult but with little success.

Just last year, the World Health Organization labeled misoprostol an “essential medicine” which should make it even more accessible to women worldwide.

The New York Times