Planned Parenthood May Have Caused Women’s Abortion Drug Deaths 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 6, 2006
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A doctor who has reviewed the seven cases of women in the United States dying after using the dangerous abortion drug RU 486 has admitted that it’s possible the deaths occurred because Planned Parenthood gave women incorrect instructions.
When the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the abortion drug in the waning days of the Clinton administration, it said mifepristone should only be used orally.
Despite its recommendations, the abortion company told women to use it vaginally, claiming it would produce fewer complications. Planned Parenthood also uses a different dosage of the abortion drug than the FDA suggests.
It wasn’t until more women had died after getting fatal infections from the abortion drug that Planned Parenthood finally changed its policy.
Beverly Winikoff, MD, MPH, of the Gynuity Health Projects organization has authored an editorial on the abortion drug that appears in the latest issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, a publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
She says she doesn’t know what caused the abortion deaths but admitted that Planned Parenthood’s policy change allows a review to determine if the abortion business’ misleading directions played a part.
With so many Planned Parenthood abortion facilities distributing the abortion drug and them changing their policy, Winikoff said "a large natural experiment" is now occurring to determine if that was the cause.
"We will have to wait," she writes, "perhaps many months or years, but eventually we may see if this change in practice is accompanied by any measurable change in the rate of these tragic deaths."
Dr. Winikoff and Michael Aldape, PhD, of the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, who also wrote an article on RU 486, write that there are no clear measures yet identified to prevent this infection associated with the abortion drug.
The infections are difficult to identify and, in the early stages, can mimic other, more common infections, they said.
Abortion practitioners themselves have said that the abortion drug is dangerous for women.
Warren Hearn, one of the few abortion practitioners in the nation to do late-term abortions, said the information about the womens’ deaths prove RU 486 abortions are riskier than surgical abortions.
"I think surgery should be the procedure of choice," Hearn told the Times. He called the RU 486 abortion drug "a lousy way to perform an abortion."
Damon Stutes, who does abortions in Reno, Nevada, also sees the risk.
"The complications associated with RU-486 far exceed the complications of surgical abortions," he told the New York Times. Stutes, who refuses to give women the abortion drug, said he was reluctant to agree with pro-life advocates that the abortion drug is dangerous, "But the truth is the truth."
