Tales of Chemical Abortion in the New York Times
by Chris Gacek
January 8, 2009
On January 5, 2009, the New York Times carried an article (“For Privacy’s Sake, Taking Risks to End Pregnancy” by Jennifer R. Lee and Cara Buckley) describing the fact that many Dominican women in New York City are aborting using the anti-ulcer drug, misoprostol (Cytotec®). Misoprostol is also the second drug in the FDA-approved abortion regimen of mifepristone (RU-486 or Mifeprex®) and misoprostol. Using misoprostol alone is a practice that is widely found in Latin American nations because misoprostol is cheap and available in pharmacies while mifepristone is either expensive, restricted in distribution, or both. (From some quick web research: RU-486 does not appear to be approved in many Latin American nations; it isn’t even approved in Canada.)
Access to RU-486 is tightly controlled in the United States, but misoprostol is sold in drug stores as an anti-ulcer medication for people who take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). In New York City “women can obtain the pills either through pharmacies that are willing to bend the rules and provide the medicine without a prescription or by having the drugs shipped from overseas.”
The RU-486 regimen was developed so that mifepristone could chemically end the pregnancy’s development while relying on misoprostol to then bring about the violent uterine contractions needed to expel the “products of conception.” With misoprostol-only abortions the mifepristone-related chemical action does not occur, and abortions, like those reported in the article, depend primarily on termination based on contractions and expulsion. Because of the dual action, RU-486 abortions are more effective than misoprostol-only abortions, but even they fail 3-5% of the time.
To their credit, Lee and Buckley do note that misoprostol abortions have “side effects” that “can be serious, and include rupture of the uterus, severe bleeding and shock.” The article also quotes a doctor who has studied misoprostol abortions in New York City where “he saw a lot of Dominican immigrants with incomplete abortions in the emergency room.”
Of course, this is the pattern that we at FRC, along with doctors from the American Association of Pro Life Ob/Gyns (“AAPLOG”), have observed. We analyzed RU-486 adverse event reports obtained from the FDA via the Freedom of Information Act. Many chemical abortions do not complete themselves and women are forced to seek out emergency room care while they are tremendously sick. Blood loss can be significant sometimes requiring transfusions.
Instead of portraying these abortions as events that end the life of a human being while abusing the bodies of the women who have them, chemical abortions are portrayed in a benign light in the article. But the reality is much different.
For more on RU-486 abortions and the drug’s U.S. approval, download Politicized Science: The Manipulated Approval of RU-486 and Its Dangers to Women’s Health.
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Comments
“(From some quick web research: RU-486 does not appear to be approved in many Latin American nations; it isn’t even approved in Canada.)”
But it is approved here in the UK. And France. And I would expect through most of Europe, too. Stop trying to create the impression that this is some obscure, untested drug – it’s been in use since 1988.
Also, it’s mifepristone. RU-486 sounds really scarey, I know, but that’s not it’s name. It’s a testing designation used prior to it getting approval and a name in ‘88. RU refers to the developing company.
Canada hasn’t approved mifepristone. Odd, because they use methotrexate instead for the same purpose. Methotrexate is not a nice drug – it’s side effects are really very nasty indeed. This is a bit out of my area of knowledge, but what I have been able to research suggests the reason is political – methotrexate is a multipurpose drug (It’s also used for cancer and arthritus), while mifepristone has no common uses other than abortion and thus faces a lot of political meddling that puts the producers off even trying to get it approved. The same reason approval in the US was over a decade after approval in France – Bush Senior pulled a few strings and for the FDA to put it on a blacklist before they even considered approval. It took a long time before it was taken off the list. It wasn’t until twelve years after France approved the drug that the FDA finally did so too.
By: Christina Dunigan | January 8, 2009 at 5:22 pm
We need to stop acting as if wanting to kill your baby is an urge we need to facilitate. Ambivalence is normal in early pregnancy, even the urge to bail out on the pregnancy. NOBODY, not even prolifers, does much to let women know that this ambivalence is normal, and that it passes. That alone would likely go very far to reduce abortion.
Also we need to start holding abortion advocates accountable for trying to teach women that abortion is a good and normal thing to do. Yes, the THOUGHT is normal — but so are a lot of thoughts. But we don’t encourage people to ACT on those thoughts.