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  • Title: RU-486: the experience of users.
    Author: Girault-laurence J.
    Journal: Plan Parent Eur; 1991 Sep; 20(2):21. PubMed ID: 12284549.
    Abstract:
    Although RU-486 does not completely remove a woman's anguish surrounding abortion, this new alternative does lessens the trauma and provides women greater choice. RU-486 allows women the possibility of an early abortion, from the time that pregnancy is observed shortly after a period is delayed up to the 49th day after amenorrhoea. Taken in the form of a pill, RU-486 differs vastly from the other method of voluntary termination of pregnancy, Karman aspiration. Many women prefer terminating pregnancy through the use of RU-486 because: 1) it is less traumatic; 2) it is more natural, since it more closely resembles a miscarriage; 3) it is more intimate, since it requires less external medical intervention; and 4) it is less costly. Most importantly, having a choice of methods allows women to reassert control over the process. Still, taking RU-486 is not a simple matter. First, women have to decide to use this method, and then must undergo a consultation and interview -- 2 steps that take place in a 2-day interval. This interval gives women additional time to reflect. The final 2 steps are the taking of the tablets and the injection and expulsion at the hospital. Women testify that they still undergo anguish throughout the process, but that it is less traumatic. Anti-abortion groups have denounced RU-486, believing that it will make abortion too easy and that women will rely on it too much. The drug, however, is not a miracle method. Yet RU-486 does give women greater choice and reduces medical risks, and is therefore, in the words of the French health minister, the "moral property of women."
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