DIY abortions seem to be all set to start a trend in 2012. With the cost of having abortions sky-rocketing, an alarming percentage of women have been seeking home remedies which aid them in having the abortion in the privacy and seclusion of their own homes. While the normal visit to the doctor and the prescriptions range anywhere between $400 to $600 depending on which stage of pregnancy is being terminated, the herbal ‘remedies’ cost as low as $3 to $10. It is not only the cost factor. Even if a woman is ready to shell out the necessary dollars, abortion drugs are not available without a prescription. The major advantage of home solutions is that they assure a woman complete privacy which translates into better social acceptance for the woman in many cultures and societies.
Around 75,700 abortions are being done in Britain through home remedies. This represents almost one third of the total terminations. No wonder that Britain’s largest abortion provider seeks to move to court to make abortion drugs available over the counter.
Mentioned below are the side effects of abortion:
1. Many women choose to undergo ‘herbal’ and ‘natural’ abortion methods over the surgical ones. These terms only lend a tone of ‘naturalness’ to the procedure while the actual bait is the low cost. However, statistics show that a woman is twice as likely to require hospitalization and treatment using the ‘herbal’ means as compared to a normal surgical procedure.
2. Diarrhea, nausea and vomiting are very common side effects of such home remedies. They occur to a certain extent even in medically terminated pregnancies also, but their intensity and frequency is far low.
3. Up to 1.5 percent of the women who underwent ‘natural’ and ‘home remedy’ abortions needed emergency hospitalization. The figure here is only from those women who have accepted the fact that they underwent a home abortion. This is because such methods make the woman prone to suffer many complications which also include excessive bleeding.
4. Another statistic shows that almost 1 percent of the women who accepted that they had a ‘herbal’ abortion developed pelvic inflammatory disease. Severe abdominal pains and cramps are the symptoms of this condition. This disease could worsen and result in infertility.
5. Prescribed drugs contain the correct amount of necessary compounds to elicit the abortion. The herbal remedies are often a concoction of various compounds. In case anything going wrong, it becomes difficult to determine the exact cause. Some of these remedies are unreliable while a few can be outright dangerous.
6. Taking recourse in such herbal remedies also increases the risk of infection by several notches. Toxic shock syndrome is a condition that occurs when the blood of the woman who has had an abortion gets infected with bacteria.
7. In worst cases, such abortions could also lead to death.
