Plattsburgh, NY -- The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the dangerous abortion drug RU 486 for use in the United States was hailed by abortion advocates. They claimed the abortion drug would make abortion, safer, more convenient, and more available -- if also more profitable -- than surgical abortions.
Data thus far suggests the abortion drug has been as widely used as abortion advocates hoped or expected. Now, in a startling admission by the drug's maker, it may not be safe either.
Dr. Richard Hausknecht, the medical director of Danco, the company that makes Mifepristone, also know as RU-486, spoke about the abortion drug at a news conference Friday at Northern Adirondack Planned Parenthood in Plattsburgh, New York.
The pills are "the other modality for medical abortion as compared to surgical abortion," Hausknecht said. "We don't know (RU-486) is safer, but we do know that it is as safe."
RU-486 can be used up to seven weeks into the pregnancy and -- combined with a drug that spurs contractions -- causes an abortion. The maker of the second drug has written a letter to doctors saying the drug is being misused in association with an abortion.
Hausknecht, Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates see RU-486 as a non-invasive, more private way to conduct an abortion. Some women, Hausknecht said, see using the Mifepristone pills as "more natural" -- a feeling Hausknecht said he doesn't quite understand. The abortion drug involves a multi-step process requiring repeat visits to an abortion facility.
"Other women are afraid they will see something come out of their bodies" and opt for the surgical abortion, Hausknecht said.
However, Dr. John Middleton, district director for New York Right to Life, said RU-486 "has a bad record. I think the literature is quite clear."
Middleton said a problem with an abortion brought about by drugs, versus the surgical abortion, is its two-stage process, which he says "drags it out" and makes the abortion more dangerous.
The drug is another part of the larger debate surrounding the moral and legal issues of abortions. For Middleton and his colleagues, the real issue is about what the abortion pills do.
"I believe it is a child. It's only a medicine to kill a child. I don't favor anything ... that does away with a child."
Middleton was a psychotherapist before abortion became legal and saw women who had had abortions. He said he has counseled women suffering "despair" or "guilt" after an abortion.
"The feeling is very intense. Sometimes they don't know what the feeling is about. When they come to grips with it, when they come to grips with their soul," they feel better, Middleton said.
"I've been in practice for 53 years" in family and individual counseling, Middleton said, and his position on abortion "gets reinforced every time I go through it."
From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org>
Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org>
Subject: RU 486 Maker Admits Abortion Drug Not "Safer" Than Surgical
Abortion
Source: Plattsburgh (NY) Press Republican; May 20, 2002
