Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new report presented at the annual American Association for Cancer Research meeting claims the dangerous abortion drug RU 486 can be used in ovarian cancer treatments. But a pro-life researcher says the publicity surrounding it is meant to take away from how it has killed women and children.

The new report indicates adding the mifepristone abortion drug to chemotherapy "kills ovarian cancer cells that escaped cisplatin treatment."

HealthDay News indicates researchers found combining the abortion drug with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin could improve the chances of success for treating ovarian cancer.

The news service indicated Dr. Carlos Telleria, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of South Dakota, reported the findings to the meeting.

"Mifepristone, which was initially created for contraceptive purposes, has a therapeutic effect against ovarian cancers that remained after standard cisplatin therapy," he said.

Chemotherapy doesn't always kill the cancerous ovarian cells and the cisplatin drug still allows some cancerous cells to grow and develop.

But when the cancer cells were exposed to mifepristone they all died, Telleria said.

Dr. Randy O'Bannon, the director of research and education at the National Right to Life Committee said he's not surprised that a drug meant to kill unborn children would successfully kill ovarian cancer cells.

He told LifeNews.com that nothing would be wrong with the abortion drug if it was originally intended to help patients kill cancer cells rather than killing babies.

"It is the abortion industry's fixation on its abortifacient properties that caused so much time, energy, and money to be diverted to its destructive capacities, to the killing of unborn children," he said.

Dr. O'Bannon was also concerned that both HealthDay News and Telleria referred to the abortion drug -- which has caused the death of 13 women worldwide and injured more than 1,200 in the U.S. alone -- as a contraceptive.

"It doesn't help matters, either, when the authors keep referring to RU 486 as a 'contraceptive,'" he told LifeNews.com.

"The abortion pill typically works after the sperm has joined the egg, that is, after fertilization has occurred, and after the young embryo has implanted in the mother's uterine wall. That's the action of an abortifacient," he concluded.

Related web sites:
National Right to Life - http://www.nrlc.org