The New Our Bodies, Ourselves calls menstrual extraction (ME) "a powerful example of medical research done by women on and for ourselves." As the safest and most effective of the techniques that can be performed on women by women, independently of any legal restrictions that may be imposed on doctors in the coming months and years, menstrual extraction is today at the center of the raging abortion debate, serving both symbolically and practically as the line of first defense against recent rollbacks of women's reproductive rights in the nation's courts. A Woman's Book of Choices chronicles the history of ME, the currently accepted standard of ME practice, and its legal ramifications, and offers accounts of actual ME procedures. It also describes the who range of other abortion alternatives, from state-of-the-art clinical abortions to folk remedies, for women who may be considering terminating a pregnancy. In addition, there is a comprehensive chapter that is directed to medical personnel who may be providing abortion care, and a chapter on the French-developed abortion pill, RU-486.
Author(s): Rebecca Chalker, Carol Downer
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Year: 1992
Language: English
Pages: 271
City: New York
Tags: abortion; menstrual extraction; feminism; self-help;
Foreword vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction xiii
Why This Book is Necessary 1
1. Finding an Abortion Provider 7
2. Information Networks 49
3. The Best Available Abortion Care 67
4. Back to the Bad Old Days? 97
5. The Development of Menstrual Extraction 113
6. Friendship Groups 129
7. Two Menstrual Extractions 153
8. The Legality of Menstrual Extraction 167
9. Herbs and Other Traditional Methods
of Fertility Control 183
10. Folk Remedies That Are Dangerous
and Don't Work 203
1 1 . Is RU-486 the Wave of the Future? 207
What Practitioners Need to Know
about Abortion Complications 221
Del-Em™ 241
References 253
Suggested Reading 259
Index
