Court rules women can complete pill abortion at home

12.00pm

The Right to Life anti-abortion group says it is disappointed with a court ruling which allows women to go home after being given the abortion drug Mifepristone.

In a High Court decision released yesterday, Justice Durie ruled that women being given the drug, formerly known as RU486, did not have to stay in an abortion clinic until the foetus was expelled.

In December, he heard arguments in the High Court at Wellington over whether the doctor who administered the drug should be legally required to make a woman stay at the clinic until the abortion was completed.

Abortion is only legal if carried out at a licensed clinic.

The process of an abortion using Mifepristone takes place in three stages. The patient is given Mifepristone, then 36 to 48 hours later a prostaglandin is administered. The third stage is the expulsion of the foetus.

Right to Life, which made a submission to the court, said today that the ruling would "herald a new era in the killing of unborn children".

"The judgment is a sad and historic day for unborn children and their mothers," spokesman Ken Orr said.

"It (the drug) is a serious threat to women's health," he said.

"Many women undergoing a chemical abortion will now be faced with the trauma of delivering a dead baby possibly alone away from a hospital."

The group said a United States trial showed that 49 per cent of women given the drug aborted during the first four hours they spent waiting at the hospital.

A further 26 per cent aborted some time over the next 20 hours away from hospital, with the remainder aborting over the following two weeks.

Most women on the trial bled for between one and four days, but the range of bleeding time extended up to 32 days.

"Women undergoing a chemical abortion should remain in hospital with emergency facilities and counselling readily available until the abortion is complete," Mr Orr said.

Sexual health specialist Margaret Sparrow, a director of the company which imports the drug, said most clinics had not used Mifepristone for early abortions because of the uncertainty over how long women should legally stay in hospital.

"Now that the law is clarified I hope that some of the clinics will think of offering this as a choice for women," she said.

"There's quite a significant group of women who want to have that choice and would like to have a medical abortion that doesn't involve surgery."

- NZPA