Peak obstetricians’ body warns women at risk after abortion pill access expanded

Labor’s expansion of abortion pill access puts more women at risk of complications, or even death, a peak obstetricians’ body has warned.

The federal government’s expansion of abortion pill access puts women at risk of complications, or even death, according to an obstetrician body. Picture: Supplied

Anthony Albanese’s expansion of abortion pill access puts women at risk of complications, or even death, an obstetrician body says, raising alarm over the government not properly considering the unintended consequences of the policy.

National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynae­cologists president Gino Pecoraro said allowing nurses to prescribe the abortion pill would see “lesser trained practitioners” handing out the medication.

“You can’t just start something like this, you have to have all the infrastructure in place to deal with all of the complications and it may simply be that it’s just not safe to do this everywhere,” he said.

“I’ve seen first-hand what can happen. I think what we need are health solutions and what’s been announced is a political solution.”

National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynae­cologists president Gino Pecoraro. Picture: Tara Croser

The Therapeutic Goods Administration earlier in July approved an application from the not-for-profit pharmaceutical company MS Health to amend restrictions on the medical abortion pill MS-2 Step, which can be taken up to nine weeks from conception.

As part of the change, nurse practitioners will be allowed to prescribe the pill and pharmacists will no longer need a “special certification” to dispense it.

Dr Pecoraro said he had been called in to help save the life of a 40-year-old woman earlier this year who was flown in from ­regional NSW after being prescribed the abortion pill and experiencing significant side effects and bleeding.

“She nearly died,” he said.

“It’s a dictum in medicine that you shouldn’t be prescribing something if you can’t deal with the complications of it. I’m just concerned that on the surface this looks like a wonderful thing to increase access to regional and remote disadvantaged women … but the first rule has to be do no harm, and I’m not convinced we’re not going to do harm.”

Of all medical abortions, he estimated about 5 per cent resulted in complications. “Someone could die because of this,” he said.

The Albanese government has been typically cautious in its response to calls for expanded abortion access, after its decision to take an ambitious policy to the 2019 election that tied public hospital funding to the provision of terminations was weaponised by the Coalition and religious groups.

While welcoming the move to expand access to the pill, the Australian Medical Association vice-president Danielle McMullen also stressed the need for appropriate training and support to be offered to health practitioners empowered to hand out the medication.

A spokesman for the health department said it was the responsibility of each state and territory to “determine the specific healthcare practitioner and appropriate ­qualifications for prescribing”, but he said the decision to expand prescribing power of MS-2 Step had been “supported by expert advice from the Advisory Committee on Medicine”.

Catholic and Anglican leaders across the country raised alarm over the lifting of regulations for practitioners to prescribe MS-2 Step, which they said represented a rolling back of necessary safeguards.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher. Picture: Damian Shaw

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher said the change expanded the reach of medical abortion “without any expansion of pregnancy support for women”.

“We can do better for mothers and their babies than to make it easier for them to access abortion without making it easier to access genuine medical care and support to go ahead with their pregnancy. It’s very lop-sided,” he said.

Anglican Archdeacon for Women’s Ministry Kara Hartley and Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Kanishka Raffel said the policy would make it “more dangerous” for women in regional areas with less access to support services after complications.

“The impact of allowing self-administration of medication which terminates the life of an unborn child up to nine weeks of gestation is profound,” Archbishop Raffel said.

“The rhetoric around this issue has been focused on access rather than the impacts of abortion.”

Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn Christopher Prowse said it was “absolutely tragic that so many women find themselves in a position where they believe that they have no choice but to cease a pregnancy”.