Abortion Pill to be Widely Available

Medical abortion is about to become more widely available across Australia, after not-for-profit sexual health organisation Marie Stopes International won the right to use the so-called abortion pill RU486 in its clinics. From today the drug, also known as mifepristone, will be offered as an alternative to surgical abortion by 14 doctors at MSI’s nine centres in Victoria, NSW, the ACT, Western Australia and Queensland. It will be used only at less than nine weeks’ gestation, under prescribing and import rights granted by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Marie Stopes said the TGA had relaxed rules compared with previous prescribing rights