'Miffy' helps make abortion a private affair
RU-486 is quietly changing the way pregnancy is ended
Rob Stein, Washington Post
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court's landmark Roe vs. Wade decision, a pill that has largely faded from the rancorous public debate over abortion has slowly and quietly begun to transform the experience of ending a pregnancy in the United States.

On the market since 2000, the French abortion pill RU-486 has become an increasingly common alternative, making abortion less clinical and more private. At a time when the overall number of abortions has been steadily declining, a new survey reported that RU-486-induced abortions have been rising by 22 percent a year and now account for 14 percent of the total - and more than 1 in 5 of early abortions performed by the ninth week of pregnancy. the rest image