- We begin our 52nd year of publishing with timely and important articles from our two new editors, Mary Rose Somarriba and Christopher M. Reilly.
In “DIY Abortion Returns: From Back Alleys to Bathrooms,” Somarriba makes the chilling case that the easy availability of “medication abortion” has brought back the dangers of the back alley. “In a strange full-circle moment,” she writes, “the abortion lobby that once invoked the horrors of self-managed abortion and demanded doctor-directed procedures now promotes at-home abortion as a comparable solution.” The abortion “pill,” really two medications taken separately, is now the dominant method of abortion in the U.S. Women lose their unborn children alone, in their bathrooms, with excruciating pain, tremendous bleeding, and often (more than with surgical abortions) complications requiring emergency care. Many have not been examined by any medical professionals, and, in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, “their life-threatening condition will be left untreated and could lead to a ruptured fallopian tube.” Somarriba includes harrowing first-person accounts from several sources and points to other dangers of the pills, including coercion—recently exposed in several news accounts—where women are deceived into ingesting the drugs by those who want the child dead. What about any restrictions? The abortion lobby is not having it. As Somarriba writes, it is clear that now “The goal is abortion access, not women’s health.”
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