Talk:Medical abortion

need two sections?
I just noticed a good section on ru 486 later in article...this one said it needed doing so i tried, but do we need two sections? Also what is the risk level of using the drug (i've come across varying numbers...personally i'd use it except you can't get it in Canada if the situation ever arrised but i know protes pages are saying its dangerous

While i was doing research on another aspect of abortions in Canada i came across the statistics for the safety of chemical abortions...i've included them in the page (or stub). Quite safe when compared to childbirth, although complications can occur and it may not be all that comfortable (the article said that many of the effects were similar to a vaccumm abortion with cramps and heavy bleeding etc.--Marcie 17:17, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

oh i do agree old chap rather spiffing.

Incorrect statement in last part of article...
"Chemical abortions are not otherwise available in Canada and the drug can not be imported for personal use."

This statement is incorrect (I'm Canadian and I've had a chemical abortion)

Chemical abortions in Canada are done with methotrexate and misoprostol (rather than mifepristone as in the states - RU-486).

More info on this page: http://www.montrealmorgentaler.ca/index.php?page=medical&lang=_en
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.105.164.194 (talk • contribs) 05:03, 24 November 2006

Wiki Education assignment: WikiProject Medicine Winter 2024 UCF COM
— Assignment last updated by Ssleeper37 (talk) 15:50, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

WikiProject Medicine Winter 2024 UCF COM
Hey all! I am a fourth-year medical student interested in women's health and education. I have chosen to edit this article as part of a course project.

My work plan:

Lead Section:

- add citations (ACOG/FDA) where necessary such as sentence on approved drug regimen (mife/miso)

- verify links are active and accurate

Access to medical abortion:

- ensure updated information by verifying citations/include new telehealth options that may be available since last edit

- add section about the role telehealth services played during the COVID-19 pandemic using meta-analyses/systematic reviews

- include link to reproductiverights.org that has an easy to navigate map of the U.S. with descriptions of abortion laws in each state

- verify links are active and accurate

Contraindications/Adverse Effects:

- search for more updated information and replace citations where appropriate

- ensure language is neutral and does not sound like medical advice

Pharmacology/Society and Culture:

- ensure language is as simple as possible/avoid biased language

- beef up pharm section without making it overwhelming to read

Ssleeper37 (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

WikiProject Medicine Winter 2024 UCF COM Peer Review
You did an excellent job updating this article, which sees an extremely high level of daily activity and is clearly important to the general public. I think you have done an excellent job of improving clarity, removing medical jargon, adding citations where needed, and removing incorrect or outdated information. I also really enjoyed the COVID-19 section that you added. I would recommend making the following updates to the article:
 * Update the sentence "The new legislation, which will go into effect on July 1, 2023, criminalizes the "prescription, dispensation" to show that this is in the past tense now as well as any updates as to whether this law was contested and went into effect.
 * Include a link to the ibuprofen article in the sentence "Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen reduce pain with medication abortion".
 * Consider updating the statistics on the percent of abortions that are medical abortions as the cited statistics are mostly from the late 2000s.

Dy773400 (talk) 01:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Specifically which sentence in the article are you referring to for: "...the cited statistics are mostly from the late 2000s."? Most of the dates I see are from 2019 onward, in the infobox and the table (Medical abortions as a percentage of all abortions) in the "Prevalence" section. --- Avatar317 (talk) 06:07, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Recent reversion - claim of advertising
Regarding this edit : How is naming some of the agencies providing this service in the US (especially ones that have their own Wiki article), SOURCED TO NEWS SOURCES, any different than listing the names of better known ride-sharing companies (with their Wikilinks) in a Ridesharing company article? It could be worded differently or only mention the ones with Wikilinks...These organizations and their existence and rapid demand growth got LOTS of media coverage following Dobbs. --- Avatar317 (talk) 18:15, 31 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The key for this kind of decision is looking at what the sources say.   If the sources do not name & list the organizations, then this article should not.
 * I did a quick google search and found quite a few articles in major news outlets that discuss the telehealth efforts, and many (most?) of them list a few organizations that provide the service.   Listed below are three of the dozens sources I found.
 * So it looks like many sources that discuss medical abortion are discussing organizations (many of them recently formed) that are making efforts to make the drugs more readily available.    So it is valid material for this article.
 * Note that this Medical Abortion article is not simply a pharmaceutical article, which would tend to avoid any sort of commercial discussions. But the subject of this article, of course, includes significant legal, political and social aspects, and hence is not a  purely pharmaceutical article, so discussion of organizations that focus on Medical Abortion is appropriate for this article ... nothing too detailed, but certainly a sentence or two containing some links to more detailed info.
 * Perhaps this particular information ("Organizations that focus on providing telehealth access") could be located in the "Society and culture" section ... and rather than just list them, add some verbiage from the sources stating why and how they began their efforts?
 * Noleander (talk) 21:33, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me; it was previously in the "Telehealth access" section, and I re-added it to the "Direct-to-patient access" section, figuring that was a better location, but your suggestion sounds good to me. As you found and I had also noticed, there was LOTS of discussion with names of these organizations in RS's following Dobbs.
 * Any comments/thoughts/ideas? --- Avatar317 (talk) 23:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Adding the names of those specific entities/businesses to the article provides them with undue weight. The article shouldn't be a guide containing a list of businesses/entities/services. It seems appropriate to mention or describe that such places exist but not to list specific ones. Please see WP:NPOV, WP:NOTGUIDE, WP:NOTNEWS --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 05:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As myself and Noleander noted, many sources all mention different agencies BY NAME, and multiple articles go into detail about those agencies, and the article as a whole is CLEARLY not a list of businesses, so I'll work with Noelander on adding this content back since there is now consensus for it to be in the article. --- Avatar317 (talk) 06:03, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As myself and Noleander noted, many sources all mention different agencies BY NAME, and multiple articles go into detail about those agencies, and the article as a whole is CLEARLY not a list of businesses, so I'll work with Noelander on adding this content back since there is now consensus for it to be in the article. --- Avatar317 (talk) 06:03, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The sources are news articles, not encyclopedias. Wikipedia is not news. --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 06:24, 2 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I think that the comparison to ridesharing companies is not proportional.
 * First, the ridesharing companies named tend to be famous (some more so in certain countries, e.g., Yandex Taxi will be famous in Russia but not in the US). Uber, in particular, was a ground-breaking innovation, and it's typical for a certain class of business to describe their scope as "Uber for ____".  We don't have anything similar for any of the companies listed here (none of which I recognize, although I might have seen Hey Jane mentioned in a news article once).
 * Second, most of those companies are mentioned in other parts of the article. Uber's mentioned about 30 times in that article.  You can't have a comprehensive article about ridesharing companies without talking about Uber being sued; ergo, individual companies will need to be named in that article.  Reasonable people might disagree about whether all of them should be named, but I think it's indisputable that some of them should be named.
 * Third (and this should be pretty obvious), the subject of that article is ridesharing companies. The article is literally about the companies themselves, rather than about the concept of carpooling or taxi driving.  It would be very odd for an article about ridesharing companies to never name any of the companies.  If the subject of this article were "Medical abortion companies", then I'd have a completely different feeling about namedropping seven(!) businesses operating in a single country.
 * As a tangent, please note that those seven should probably be called "businesses" or "organizations"; the word agency is used to describe a go-between (e.g., an employment agency, in which the agent matches a worker with an employer) or the imposition of power (e.g., a government agency).
 * I don't think that any of these should be named. If other editors believe that some should be named, then I would suggest leaving out the non-notable businesses, and perhaps trying to limit the list to just the two or three best known. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Valid point about Ridesharing companies being a poor analogy, and your point about "agencies" is also correct. I do think we should name the notable ones; (the three that I know of existed prior to Dobbs, but got more publicity after Dobbs) those being: Aid Access and carafem (who distribute pills) and information sites like Plan C.  We should also talk about how many others (both pill distribution and information-only sites) have sprung up post-Dobbs.  As mentioned above, sources are numerous for that info. --- Avatar317 (talk) 23:02, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Please take due weight and balance into consideration if you are going to mention any of the organizations. I don't think any of them belong in the article. --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 02:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * WWWW wrote "I don't think that any of these should be named. If other editors believe that some should be named, then I would suggest leaving out the non-notable businesses, and perhaps trying to limit the list to just the two or three best known"  ... based on my reading of the sources, I think mentioning 2 or 3 major organizations is best for this article.  The key is framing it as "In response to blah blah, several organizations began providing telehealth support focusing on medical abortion"  (rather than just "Here are some organizations that do telehealth").  I'll add that verbiage. Noleander (talk) 03:26, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Here is the new text:
 * In response to abortion restrictions imposed by some states after the Dobbs legal decision, several organizations that provide telehealth services related to medical abortion, such as Plan C and Hey Jane, saw an increase in inquiries and usage.
 * Noleander (talk) 03:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that naming two examples would be better than naming seven. Avatar317, you had an idea above about mentioning the creation of more such businesses.  Do you have sources handy to support anything like that?  I assume that it would say something along the lines of "Many new startups also were created" (i.e., talking about the increase in the number of organizations rather than naming specific ones).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * "I think that naming two examples would be better than naming seven." - Agreed. There are plenty of sources, I'll go through them in the next several days to see whether I can come up with something like mention of how many new organizations started.
 * (I haven't read Noleander's sources, but) I think a key point we should be mentioning about these organizations is that they do not (to my knowledge) have a physical presence, they provide ONLY medical abortion pills, which is significantly different than most abortion providers, who are either your neighborhood gynecologist or a Planned Parenthood or other women's clinic, out of which they also provide pills. The disputed edit that started this conversation is "In the US, several agencies exist which provide only medication abortion to patients," and I believe the ONLY part of that is what makes these special and deserving of mention. Maybe we should emphasize the only. --- Avatar317 (talk) 00:32, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * What I've seen in the sources are statements like  "In response to Dobbs, organizations are beginning to provide ..." or "In response to Dobbs, Organization ABC was created ..." or  "In response to Dobbs, organization ABC saw an increase in inquiries ..."
 * I don't recall a source that has a quantitative statement such as "The number of organizations providing telehealth services/advice related to medication abortion has increased".  Not saying there are no sources with such a quantitative statement ... just that I don't recollect one.
 * The common threads of the sources are:  post-Dobbs, (1) there was an increase in activity in these organizations; (2) that some organizations were created; and (3)   some organizations expanded their operations.  Noleander (talk) 00:47, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The common threads of the sources are:  post-Dobbs, (1) there was an increase in activity in these organizations; (2) that some organizations were created; and (3)   some organizations expanded their operations.  Noleander (talk) 00:47, 5 April 2024 (UTC)