Self-induced abortion

A self-induced abortion (or self-induced miscarriage) is an abortion performed by the pregnant woman herself outside of the recognized medical system. Although the term includes abortions induced with legal over-the-counter medication, it also refers to efforts to terminate a pregnancy through alternative, sometimes more dangerous means. Such practices may present a threat to the health of the woman, and an unsuccessful attempt to induce such an abortion may cause lasting damage to the fetus.

Self-induced abortion is easier to accomplish in the earliest stages of pregnancy (the first eight weeks from the last menstrual period). In recent years, significant reductions in maternal death and injury resulting from self-induced abortions have been attributed to the growing use of misoprostol (known commercially at "Cytotec"), an inexpensive, widely available drug with multiple uses, including the treatment of post-partum hemorrhage, stomach ulcers, and induction of labor. The World Health Organization has endorsed a standarized regimen of misoprostol to induce abortion up to 9 weeks of pregnancy. This regimen has been shown to be up to 83% effective in terminating a pregnancy.

Khokhar and Gulati report that women in underdeveloped areas of India successfully induce abortions through the following methods:

There are a number of anecdotally recorded and disseminated methods of performing a self-induced abortion. Many of the following methods present significant danger (see below) to the life or health of the woman:

In a letter to the New York Times, gynecologist Waldo L. Fielding wrote:

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous "coat hanger" — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.
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However, not simply coat hangers were used.
Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.

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Wikipedia