By Dave Andrusko

A major component of the International Abortion Industry's campaign to expand the number of abortions is the use of chemical abortifacients, typically the two-drug abortion RU-486 technique. In so doing, it has ignored the FDA's recommendation that mifepristone and misoprostol be used no later than seven weeks into pregnancy. RU-486 is now routinely used through nine weeks, increasing health risks.

The key player in Great Britain's Abortion Establishment, The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), is taking the Department of Health to court for its refusal to buckle to BPAS's latest demand which also would increase the danger to women. BPAS wants the 1967 Abortion Act changed--or reinterpreted--to mean that women can take the second set of pills at home, rather than in a hospital or a clinic.

The BPAS argues that the language of the 1967 law that requires "treatment" to be given in a hospital or a clinic should be interpreted to cover the prescription of the pills, but not their administration.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health told the BBC, "It is the government's view that the words 'any treatment for the termination of pregnancy' under section 1(3) of the Abortion Act 1967 cover both the prescription and the administration of the drugs used in abortion. In the government's view, this means that both tablets used for medical abortion must be administered on premises which have been approved under the Abortion Act."

NRLC Director of Education Dr. Randall K. O'Bannon has explained in detail the many shortcuts the abortion industry has taken, elevating the risks to women (http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Oct10/nv101410part2.html). Among the most dangerous are:

* Changing the respective dosages of mifepristone and misoprostol.

* Promoted at-home, vaginal self-administration of RU486.

"Generally, this seems to be one more example of the attempt to try to decrease the involvement of the clinic and its staff in the abortion," said Dr.. O'Bannon. "If BPAS succeeds, it not only spares them the agony--and the trauma--of waiting on and watching the woman abort, but it also reduces expenses and dumps problems on the emergency rooms."

But O'Bannon added that what it definitely does not do is increase safety.

"It makes the doctors and staff less involved, more remote, less able to monitor the woman precisely when she is bleeding the most and undergoing what is probably the riskiest part of her abortion," he said.

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