The reality is that medical tools serve a wide variety of purposes, even across medical disciplines. Take misoprostol, for instance: mifepristone’s counterpart in a duo that many know by the name “medication abortion.” Misoprostol initially began as a treatment for stomach ulcers. In the 1980s, activists in Brazil discovered its abortifacient properties and developed the world’s first grassroots abortion pill network. Decades later, this wonder drug is also used to soften or “ripen” the cervix to facilitate hysteroscopy, endometrial biopsy, and the insertion of an IUD. All of these can be performed in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of various chronic illnesses; hormonal IUDs, for instance, are one tool doctors use to manage endometriosis or chronic pelvic pain.
Its slightly less famous cousin, mifepristone—which increases the effectiveness of misoprostol for inducing abortion—can be used in the management and treatment of fibroids and Cushing’s syndrome by blocking progesterone.
These medications are already difficult to access in other parts of the world where abortion is highly stigmatized and restricted—particularly mifepristone, which has fewer gynecological uses. In a 2021 research paper on misoprostol use in Francophone Africa, for instance, medical sociologist Siri Suh described misoprostol as “widely recognized as an essential obstetric medication,” yet added that “the stigma of abortion stalls its integration into routine obstetric care and availability to the public.” Suh’s ethnographic and interview data revealed that misoprostol is highly inaccessible due to a combination of legal restrictions and widespread abortion stigma.
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