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Reflections on the Tenth
Anniversary of the Approval of RU486
Part Two of Two By Dave Andrusko
Later this week and more extensively in the October issue of NRL News, Dr. O'Bannon will give us an overview of the deaths of almost a million and a half unborn babies which followed U.S. approval of RU 486--hastened along by the zealous corner-cutting of the administration of pro-abortion President Bill Clinton. Although this gets ignored or trivialized, at least eight women who took RU 486 have died in the United States and many more abroad. I will offer a few comments here, partly derived from an Associated Press story by David Crary, titled "After 10 years in US, abortion pill still divisive." Led by NRLC pro-life forces valiantly fought an all-out campaign to keep RU486 (now known commercially as Mifeprex) out of the U.S. Since FDA approved its use in September 2000, Crary says that 1.4 million women have used it. The use of RU486 has grown markedly and shows no signs of abating. We've written several stories about what Crary calls "a pioneering telemedicine program in Iowa" which "has provided the pill to about 1,900 women - with a doctor able to consult with a faraway patient in a video teleconference, then unlock a container by remote control to release the pill." (To be more specific inside is the abortifacient RU486 and the powerful prostaglandin misoprostol which stimulates the contractions needed to expel the tiny corpse.) This is a nightmare come true, offering the possibility of women self-administering a chemically-induced abortions hundreds of miles away from the abortionist who has asked her a few perfunctory questions. The plague promises to spread. "'There are many affiliates that are carefully considering this option, within the confines of their state laws,' said Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation's leading abortion provider," according to Crary. "Mifeprex now accounts for about one-quarter of U.S. abortions performed in the first nine weeks of pregnancy and about 15 percent of all U.S. abortions," Crary writes. "In 2008, about 184,000 American women used the pill - up from 55,000 in 2001 even though the overall number of U.S. abortions wasn't rising." In addition, "Ten years ago, Planned Parenthood offered surgical abortions at 151 sites, according Cullins; now the organization has 322 centers providing abortion - nearly half of them relatively small clinics that offer the pill but not surgery." The dangers continue to underestimated, especially "tele-abortions." As Dr. O'Bannon wrote earlier this month, "When these pills 'work,' they do not simply target the unborn child, but also the woman's reproductive and other systems. They initiate copious bleeding, painful cramps, and often nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Some women have experienced heart palpitations, drops in blood pressure, dizziness. A number of women do not abort or do not have a complete abortion, requiring some surgical intervention. "Women given RU486," he concluded, "need to be closely monitored and they need to have medical help close at hand, not hundreds of miles away." Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |
Over
the last fifteen years, I venture to say no publication has
written as extensively and exhaustingly on this two-drug
abortifacient technique as National Right to Life News. Most of
that investigative work on RU486 has been complied by Dr.
Randall K. O'Bannon, NRLC's director of education.