Pro-Life Activists Targeting RU-486 - 17 Nov 2003
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...Following up the momentum of the recent victory regarding the ban on partial-birth abortions, pro-life activists have set their sites on protecting the lives of pregnant women against the abortion-producing drug RU-486, which many experts consider too dangerous for use. The Food and Drug Administration is under constant pressure lately as an increasing number of public figures and organizations join the effort to force FDA review of the drug's approval. With the deaths of several pregnant women linked to the use of RU-486, pressure is mounting on the federal agency because of its approval of the abortion drug's use in a "fast track" process that violated the agency's own rules. Indiana Republican Representative Mike Pence is the latest member of Congress to take up the issue. "It was often repeated in the 1990s that the goal of the White House was to make abortions safe, legal, and rare," the congressman says; however he notes, "the truth is that abortions are not safe, especially using RU-486." Citing medical statistics that indicate the frequency of complications after using the drug, he says beyond its 8% failure rate, there is a 2% rate of hemorrhaging, requiring surgical intervention. According to statistical evidence, as many as 3,000 to 5000 patients a year will require hospitalization, and as Pence points out, "there's no requirement in the FDA rules that the doctor administering the drug have the ability to admit a patient to a hospital." The representative contends that RU-486 is simply too dangerous, and he is convinced that, as the public becomes more aware of what is happening to the women who take the abortion drug, there will be an outcry to restrict or completely terminate its use. |