Is the abortion pill (RU-486) available?
The medical name for this pill is mifepristone. At the current point in time, even though the Australian parliment has cleared the way for it’s use, no pharmaceutical company has yet applied to the TGA to register it for use in Australia. If or when mifepristone does become available, treatment will usually involve 2 or 3 visits to the clinic over a 2 week period. Each visit lasting a couple of hours. The clinic will need to perform an ultrasound at the first visit to confirm dates and exclude an ectopic pregnancy, and a follow-up ultrasound will also be required to confirm that the pregnancy is not continuing and that there is no retained tissue. Most patients will have moderate bleeding and cramping for around 9 to 16 days. About 5% of patients will require a surgical procedure to complete the termination. The main difference between surgical and medical terminations, is that a medical termination does not require an anaesthetic and there is usually no surgical procedure required. Fo
