Another method was mentioned by three participants but was actually used by only one 

in a failed abortion attempt. This was called Ergot. 

It [is] called Ergot, tiny pills, even if you are six months pregnant you can use it to abort. 

You take three in the morning, three in the afternoon, and three in the evening and you 

don't eat the whole day, but by the following morning it will come. . . It would hurt like 

you're in labor, you will push it out. . . A friend of mine used it. . .If you do not have a 

prescription, you have to beg for a long time before they sell it to you. [Karen]  

She is likely referring to Ergotamine, a uterine contracting agent designed to minimize 

bleeding after a pregnancy termination. 

6.3.1  Auntie Mercy or Aatsoo 

I know of a drug sold at the timber market called Aatsoo. It is sold by the herbalists. It is 

round and you insert it in the vagina. After a couple of days, the pregnancy will be 

aborted.

9

 [Diana] 

The five participants who used herbal remedies to successfully terminate their pregnancy 

all used Auntie Mercy in the vaginal suppository form.  Of the two who said they had used 

Auntie Mercy unsuccessfully, one drank it as a solution and the other douched with it. Four of 

the five girls who successfully used Auntie Mercy to terminate their pregnancies said that they 

just had a normal period after taking the medicine. One participant, however, described her first 

abortion experience at age 16 as follows: 

The medicine was sold to me at 35,000 cedis. I was asked to insert it into my vagina for 

three days. . . Two days after I removed it my stomach started hurting. I had body pains 

all over. I could not even hold anything. My hands were also hurting. I was in pain. So at 

that point my mother got to know that I was pregnant and was trying to terminate the 

pregnancy. . .  So later. . . I felt like urinating, and when I went to the bathroom some 

liquid started coming out and blood started coming out. . . It was coming out a lot, it was 

heavy, and when I strained myself the thing fell in. . . so I called my mother to come and 

see and she said it was left with something more to come. . . Then my stomach was 

hurting a lot and the rest would not come out, so my mother got a bottle for me and told 

me to blow into the bottle and strain myself and that it would come out. So I did it for 

some time and I could no longer do it, and then I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen and the 

thing came out and I bled for some time. . .  She gave me some medicine and I took it, 

some antibiotics. . .  I did not go to the hospital so, as I took the medicine, I bled for four 

to five days, then the bleeding stopped. [Faith] 

One participant said that an herbalist in the market advised her to go to the hospital for an 

abortion when she approached her for abortifacient during her second month of pregnancy. The 

9

 Haatso was described by Ottoo (1972) as  efficient haemostatics, such as haatso, a postnatal tonic drank by the 

calabash full, two to three times a day.  

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