Pro-abortion activist Robin Marty gives dangerous instructions for do-it-yourself abortions in her “New Handbook for a Post-Roe America,” which was previously the number one bestseller in the “abortion and birth control” book category on Amazon. As of this writing, it’s number nine.
Giving desperate women a risky option
Marty describes ways to induce abortions with herbs. She says her instructions are “not provided by a medical doctor and should not be considered medical advice but are only for information-sharing purposes.”1 This may protect Marty from a lawsuit if someone dies, but by giving detailed instructions, she’s encouraging desperate women to take risks with their health and lives.
She warns the concoctions can cause:
- “nausea, vomiting, vertigo, personality changes, delirium, and hallucinations.”
- “hallucinations, paralysis, and liver and kidney degeneration.”
- “Will cause diarrhea, and can cause vomiting, dehydration, and in rare cases, gastrointestinal bleeding… Clammy skin, chills, reduced pulse, violent vomiting.” [Emphasis in original]
- “Gastrointestinal irritation, vomiting, diarrhea, respiratory distress, congestion or fluid accumulation in feet or face.”
- “Nausea, hallucinations, vomiting, vertigo, hives, photosensitivity, painful urination, dark-colored urine, or tremors.”2
She also encourages women to order abortion pills online without ever seeing a doctor, saying:
Current research shows that medication abortion can and is being used to easily and safely end pregnancies independent of a clinic and with minimal risk to a patient…
Again, to be clear, multiple studies from mainstream medical journals state that medication abortion conducted independent of a provider is a safe and effective means of ending a pregnancy.3
But Marty doesn’t actually list any of these alleged studies.
How safe is abortion by mail?
Is ordering abortion pills through the mail really safe? In 2020, six months after the UK allowed women to get the abortion pill this way, emergency calls related to chemical abortion increased by 54% and ambulance calls rose by 19%.4
There is evidence these complications are very underreported.
The inventor of the abortion pill, Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu, warned:
About 5 in 1000 pregnancies are ectopic… If ectopic pregnancy is not detected, the woman goes through a disaster, regardless of whether or not she uses RU486 [the abortion pill], because it will rupture with heavy internal hemorrhaging…
This is why I insist that a woman should be medically examined if she wants an abortion of any kind, surgical or medical.
Ectopic pregnancy can best be ruled out by ultrasound.
The World Health Organization, in their handbook, “Safe Abortion: Technical and Policy Guidance for Health Systems,” states, “Ultrasound scanning is not routinely required for the provision of abortion.” But it then says, “Where it is available, a scan can help identify an intrauterine pregnancy and exclude an ectopic one from 6 weeks of gestation.”
The report then notes:
[I]t is more difficult to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy during and after medical [pill] methods of abortion, due to the similarity of symptoms…
Therefore, healthcare staff must be particularly alert to clinical signs of ectopic pregnancy… Women should be told to seek medical advice promptly if they experience symptoms that may indicate ectopic pregnancy, such as severe and intensifying abdominal pain, particularly if it is one-sided.
But the cramps caused by the abortion pill can also be severe. Because the symptoms of a burst ectopic pregnancy mimic those of the abortion pill, women won’t know they’re in danger. The FDA documented 97 cases of ectopic pregnancy after abortion by pill as of 2021, and two of the women died.
The numbers are even more striking considering that, starting in 2016, there was no requirement to report complications – these were just complications voluntarily reported by abortion doctors. The numbers are likely much higher. Also, these statistics were mainly from a time when women went to abortion facilities. Without any examination at all, the numbers are likely to be higher still.
One woman, who previously miscarried twins, described her ectopic pregnancy:
I felt slight cramping, and I knew in my heart that was wrong. I had already lost two children, so I went to the Emergency Room. I had no clue it was ectopic…
It ruptured in the room. It was more pain than I can describe. I fell to the floor and crawled into the hall to get the doctors’ attention.
I was in surgery for seven-and-a-half hours. They had to put all my blood vessels back together…
When I woke up, my husband was beside me with his head in his hands. I had died. They had to use the paddles on me three times. I don’t have any memory of it…
The initial pain was not very significant. It was only because I had previous [babies] die that I went in. If I had been at home, I would have died.4
Marty tells readers to take a pregnancy test after abortion and says they should test negative in four weeks. This is enough time for an ectopic pregnancy to rupture.
Warnings of danger while encouraging dangerous practices
Marty also gives instructions on how to build a device to do surgical abortions. She then gives detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to commit them — as if reading a page of instructions in a book really qualify a person to do this, without a need for any medical training.
She warns of infection and says these abortions should only be done by trained professionals, but then gives the reader advice on how to find abortion equipment including dilators and a speculum, suggesting rummage shops or medical retailers.
She also tells the reader where they can purchase a surgical abortion kit and gives the price.
She admits this is dangerous and recommends the abortion pill instead. She then gives instructions on how many pills to take to induce a late-term abortion.
While Marty includes disclaimers throughout the book, giving such detailed, specific instructions means that desperate women will follow them. There is no way Marty and her publisher aren’t aware women will follow their advice, regardless of the token warnings – that’s ultimately the purpose of giving it. Dedicated to promoting abortion at all costs, they show callous disregard for women’s safety.
- Robin Marty New Handbook for a Post-Roe America: The Complete Guide to Abortion Legality, Access, and Practical Support (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2019, 2021) 157
- Ibid., 158-159
- Ibid., 154
- Ryan T Anderson, Alexandra DeSanctis Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2022) 69
Matt Deaton, PhD Abortion Ethics in a Nutshell: A Pro-Both Tour of the Moral Arguments (Notaed Pres him s, 2021) 61 – 62
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