Clinicians need to prepare to treat complications from self-managed abortions, experts argue

Anticipating additional limits on legal abortion, two experts argue in a new review article in the New England Journal of Medicine that health care providers need to prepare to treat patients with complications from self-managed abortions. “As U.S. abortion laws become increasingly restrictive, people will decide to end pregnancies without clinical supervision,” write Lisa Harris of the University of Michigan and Daniel Grossman of UCSF. Medication-induced abortion is broadly safe, but, the authors write, “health care providers must become familiar with the normal course of self-managed abortion with medications and its rare complications, as well as complications of unsafe methods.” They add that clinicians need to realize that these patients could also face legal threats.