Ohio Safety Regulations on Dangerous RU 486 Abortion Drug Struck Down 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 28, 2006
Columbus, OH (LifeNews.com) — Safety regulations the state legislature approved for the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug have been struck down. Despite the abortion pill causing the deaths of twelve women worldwide and injuring more than 950 women in the U.S. alone, a federal judge ruled the provisions unconstitutional.
The regulations prevents using the abortion drug after the seventh week of pregnancy and require abortion practitioners to follow FDA guidelines when using it.
The law also tells abortion practitioners not to encourage women to use the abortion drug vaginally, which experts say could be partially responsible for why the RU 486 abortion drug has killed four women in California.
Judge Susan Dlott ruled that the Ohio law is vague and claims it could put women’s health in jeopardy. She claimed the law is confusing and that abortion practitioners couldn’t be reasonably expected to understand and implement it.
Al Gerhardstein, an attorney for plaintiff Planned Parenthood, applauded the ruling and told the Cincinnati Post "This is another piece of legislation that is intended to scare doctors away from providing reproductive health care."
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists filed legal papers supporting the abortion businesses that brought the lawsuit saying that the abortion drug could sometimes be in the best interest of women, despite its numerous health problems.
The lawsuit has bounced around the courts ever since the state legislature approved the law in 2004.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling by Dlott preventing the law from being implemented and then sent the case back to her to determine haw far an injunction against it should extend. Dlott’s ruling Wednesday prohibits any enforcement of any part of the law.
The 6th Circuit also ruled that Ohio cannot put in place protections for women on the abortion drug unless it allows exceptions for those who may face a greater health risk having a surgical abortions.
In a statement Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati sent to LifeNews.com, the pro-life group hailed the law as reasonable and said it would ensure that only doctors could prescribe the abortion drug.
The group said the law was important because it made sure abortion businesses followed FDA guidelines which include "a complete medical exam before prescribing RU-486, careful monitoring during the abortion process, and that any physician who provides RU-486 report any serious complications to the state medical board."
An abortion practitioner who violated the Ohio law protecting women could have received as much as an 18 month prison sentence.
The FDA is currently examining why so many women have died from using the abortion drug and has placed its highest black box warning on it.
Related web sites:
Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati – https://www.cincinnatirighttolife.org
