NEW YORK — The tightening of restrictions on abortion clinics in many states has emboldened some abortion rights advocates to launch an outreach effort, reminding women they have relatively safe and effective means of ending a pregnancy on their own through use of a miscarriage-inducing drug.
Anti-abortion groups are wary of the phenomenon, disavowing any drive to prosecute women who self-abort but favoring crackdowns on illegal distribution of the drug. Even in the abortion rights community, the outreach effort has raised some concerns.
Dr. Hal Lawrence, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says it’s always preferable for a woman undergoing abortion to be under direct supervision of a medical professional.
Advocates of the new approach say they would agree, under ideal conditions, but they worry that many women — out of fear, poverty or lack of a nearby clinic — are not getting access to professional services and need accurate information if they’re considering self-induced abortion. Notably, they want to highlight the option of using the drug misoprostol as a generally safe method for inducing a miscarriage within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
“There will always be people who need to do this for themselves, and they deserve to have the resources and information so they can do so safely and effectively, free from the threat of arrest,” said Jill Adams, executive director of the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at the University of California-Berkeley law school.
She is chief strategist for the Self-Induced Abortion Legal Team, formed this year by women from several legal organizations after consultations with reproductive-rights experts and activists.
The team’s goals — outlined in a recent online document — include halting prosecutions of women for self-induced abortions and expanding access to reliable information on how abortion medication can be obtained and used safely outside the formal health care system. Adams said a short-term goal is finding ways to increase access without breaking any laws.
“We’re not here to incite unlawful activity, nor to reprimand anyone if they do step outside the law,” she said. “We’re here to equip our friends and allies with the information they’ve been asking for.”
A Georgia woman was jailed without bond last year before prosecutors decided police had wrongly charged her with murder after being told she used pills ordered online to terminate her pregnancy. Kenlissia Jones, 23, was freed and the murder charge dropped; a misdemeanor drug charge was maintained.