Is medical abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol safe?
Yes, medical abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol is safe. Statistical analysis suggests that early medical and early surgical abortion are similarly safe. Medical abortion is associated with the same risks as a natural miscarriage and is many times safer than carrying a pregnancy to term. Although fatal cases of C. sordellii infection have occurred, this type of infection is rare, occurring in approximately 1 out of 120,000 uses of mifepristone medical abortion, far less often than the incidence of fatal penicillin-induced anaphylaxis (0.002% or 1 in 50,000 uses).9 In spite of widespread use of medical abortion in Europe (1.5-2.0 million women), there have been no reports of infectious deaths from any pathogen. The FDA has determined that the pills used—mifepristone and misoprostol—in these fatal cases were not contaminated with the bacteria. FDA statements reiterate that a causal relationship between the deaths of the four Californian women and mifepristone and misoprostol has