Nigeria – Unsafe Abortion: Teenage Girls Resort To Potash, Fungicide, Herbal Mixes

By THE POINTER
May 17, 2026

She writhed in pain, blood streaming down her legs. Atop the table, a black nylon bag partly concealed a dark concoction in a bottle and some unknown tablets littered by the side. The air was thick with a strange and strong odour, bloodied clothes, tissues and pads strewn across the room. Her life flashed before her, and even though she was in a mess, no one must know. She would rather perish than to be caught pregnant.

It is often the case that when a teenage girl discovers she is pregnant, her first instinct is rarely to visit a hospital. Instead, she turns to the secret economy of abortion, a world of back-alley chemists, unregulated herbal concoctions, and dangerously misused pharmaceutical drugs.

Continued: https://www.thepointersnewsonline.com/unsafe-abortion-teenage-girls-resort-to-potash-fungicide-herbal-mixes/

Herbal Abortion Is Making a Comeback. So Are the Dangers.

Since the Supreme Court gutted Roe, interest in old folk methods of terminating pregnancies has spiked. But the health and legal risks involved with these treatments are stark.

Julia Sonenshein
September 9, 2025

Though not particularly common in most herb gardens these days, rue can add a bit of bitter and bring balance to a dish gone too sweet or salty. Pennyroyal looks like mint and has a similar, zingy taste. Mugwort is tart. Tansy flowers into perfect yellow buds. Parsley is likely in your refrigerator right now, wilting a bit in your crisper drawer.

These herbs—along with a host of other foods, drinks, and cooking utensils—have all been used as abortifacients, or substances that terminate pregnancies, and have played a role in virtually every region of the world. Their usage has varied depending on the culture, political climate, concepts of gender, influence of faith, or power of the state. In many cases, they were used on this land before the formation of the United States, and they’ve been part of U.S. history since the early colonies.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/198841/herbal-abortion-revival-dobbs-health

In spite of abortion bans, self-managed abortions are safer than ever

In an increasingly restrictive landscape, self-managed medication abortions have become a critical option

By NICOLE KARLIS, Senior Writer
MAY 5, 2024

As the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the 2022 Dobbs decision, abortion rights protesters held signs adorned with wire coat hangers. The symbol evoked memories from a pre-Roe era, when the only option to terminate an unwanted pregnancy was unsafe and potentially deadly.

As detailed by one retired gynecologist in the New York Times in 2008, the symbol of a wire coat hanger was “in no way a myth.” He recalled a period between 1948 and 1953 when women would frequently arrive in his office with a coat hanger still trapped in the cervix — and it wasn’t just coat hangers. Crochet hooks, soda bottles, and darning needles were also used in attempts to end pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/05/05/in-spite-of-abortion-bans-self-managed-abortions-are-safer-than-ever/

Abortion: Women more at risk of death in fragile and conflict-affected settings

5 September 2023
Médecins Sans Frontières

Complications following unsafe abortions are up to seven times more severe in fragile or conflict-affected settings: these are the findings of one of the very first studies on the subject, carried out in two referral hospitals in Bangui in the Central African Republic and Jigawa State in northern Nigeria. Behind the statistics, real stories of real women – and a universal vulnerability.

“I was distraught. I had drunk the traditional medicine. Before that, someone had shown me how to insert a piece of iron into my vagina... It was a piece of iron like this [she shows the interviewer the size],” says Rasha*, a 32-year-old woman admitted to Bangui referral hospital with potentially life-threatening abortion-related complications.

Continued: https://www.msf.org/abortion-women-more-risk-death-fragile-and-conflict-affected-settings

Abortion is ancient history: Long before Roe, women terminated pregnancies

By Katie Hunt, CNN
Fri June 23, 2023

Abortion today, at least in the United States, is a political, legal and moral powder keg. But for long stretches of history, terminating an unwanted pregnancy, especially in the early stages, was a relatively uncontroversial fact of life, historians say.

Egyptian papyrus, Greek plays, Roman coins, the medieval biographies of saints, medical and midwifery manuals, and Victorian newspaper and pamphlets reveal that abortion was more common in premodern times than people might think.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/health/abortion-is-ancient-history-and-that-matters-today-scn/index.html

What Ethiopia can teach the US about abortion rights

Unsafe abortions once killed hundreds of Ethiopian women each year. Not any more.

Banchiamlack Dessalegn, Africa Director at MSI Reproductive Choices.
28 Sep 2022

As an Ethiopian American, I am disturbed that the United States is rolling back the reproductive rights of American women and girls, one state at a time. Unlike most Americans today, I grew up in a country where abortion bans once restricted reproductive autonomy and claimed many lives.

Now I believe that the same country – Ethiopia – can provide a valuable lesson for activists and providers looking to resurrect rights that were guaranteed through Roe v Wade until it was overturned by the US Supreme Court earlier this year.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/28/what-ethiopia-can-teach-america-about-abortion-rights

28.09.2022

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Why So Many Indians Watch YouTube To Know How To Get An Abortion

Turns out, that a large population in India is still not aware that abortion is legal.

By Adrija Bose
8 July 2022

A 25-year-old woman in Nagpur used household utensils to self-abort last year by watching a YouTube tutorial. The procedure that involves a safe place, safe tools and a trained medical practitioner was carried out by herself, in her own home when her parents were away. The woman survived but she had to spend days in the hospital, recovering from an acute infection from the procedure that could have killed her. This is not the only story of a botched abortion.

This is not the only story of a botched abortion.

Continued: https://www.boomlive.in/explainers/abortion-india-legal-watching-youtube-roe-v-wade-us-18465

What The History Of Back-Alley Abortions Can Teach Us About A Future Without Roe

By Maggie Koerth
JUN. 2, 2022

A metal coat hanger can’t speak, but it can send a message. Long a symbol of the dangers faced by people seeking to end pregnancies in the years before Roe v. Wade, coat hangers stand in for a whole inventory of physical horrors, most of which never involved coat hangers, specifically. Over the past few weeks, protesters have mailed hangers to the Supreme Court in an effort to evoke that past era — from the so-called back-alley butchers who botched surgical procedures and sexually harassed patients, to the terrible lengths individuals went through to give themselves an abortion at home. The message is simple and brutal: Without safe and legal abortion, the protesters believe, people will die.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-history-of-back-alley-abortions-can-teach-us-about-a-future-without-roe/

Don’t Trust DIY Abortion Advice on TikTok. These are the risks involved.

By Julia Craven
May 23, 2022

Scouring the internet for answers on “how to have an abortion at home” will dredge up answers that read like school-bus gossip: Some, like douching with Coca-Cola or taking a lot of vitamin C, are unlikely to be life-threatening, but they’re also extremely unlikely to end your pregnancy.

Other methods are blatantly unsafe. They include inserting anything into the vagina, which poses a high risk of infection and sepsis; ingesting toxic substances such as turpentine, bleach, and other household chemicals; and any type of physical trauma, such as hitting oneself in the abdomen or throwing oneself down the stairs. “These are all things that people heartbreakingly try to do to end their pregnancies due to lack of access to clinical care, or lack of information or awareness of safer methods,” says Heidi Moseson, a senior research scientist at Ibis Reproductive Health.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/diy-abortion-what-it-is-and-its-risks.html

Why abortion should be treated as an essential health service in humanitarian emergencies

Nelly Staderini, Doctors Without Borders
February 10, 2022

According to data from the World Health Organization, each year there are seven million hospitalizations due to complications related to unsafe abortion methods. For this reason, access to voluntary termination of pregnancy in humanitarian contexts should be considered a matter of public health, although unfortunately this is not how it is usually interpreted. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) knows first-hand the consequences of unsafe abortion. I personally know of numerous cases of women who have died trying to use sticks, pins, or hangers to terminate a pregnancy. Others ingest soap or laundry detergent, and some are poisoned by herbs or medications that are not indicated for this purpose.

We usually work in contexts where it is very common to receive women who have tried to have an abortion in a medical consultation, although they also go to the emergency services. This fact has a huge impact on our staff. Regardless of the reasons a person may have for terminating a pregnancy, the medical consequences of an unsafe abortion are always the same.

Continued: https://plainsmenpost.com/why-abortion-should-be-treated-as-an-essential-health-service-in-humanitarian-emergencies-on-the-front-line-future-planet/

10.02.2022