Planned Parenthood Continues Violating FDA Guidelines on Abortion Drug

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Sep 12, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Planned Parenthood Continues Violating FDA Guidelines on Abortion Drug

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 12
, 2008

Des Moines, IA (LifeNews.com) — The dangerous abortion drug RU 486 has killed 13 women and injured thousands more, but leading abortion business Planned Parenthood continues to violate FDA guidelines about its usage. A pro-life group says the abortion center is not giving women the complete drug but mixing dosages.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa is now offering no appointment, walk-in abortions at its centers without an appointment with a doctor.

The abortion business can do this by distributing the dangerous mifepristone abortion drug at all of their locations with a physician consulting by web cam.

Kim Lehman, the head of Iowa Right to Life, says this will make the abortion process worse for women.

"RU 486 abortions are less messy for Planned Parenthood and more traumatizing for women, because the women are forced to deal with the blood and the dead baby at home — alone," she told LifeNews.com.

"RU 486 abortions take longer and are bloodier than a surgical abortion," she added.

Worse for women though is the decision by the abortion business to violate the Food and Drug Administration protocols.

The mifepristone abortion drug involves a two-part process with the abortion drug starving the unborn child to death and the misuse of an ulcer drug called misoprostol to cause contractions and expel the body of the dead baby.

Lehman says Planned Parenthood is putting women at risk by skimping on the first drug and upping the dosage of the second.

"Planned Parenthood does not follow FDA protocol," she said.

"Planned Parenthood gives women a cheaper combination of the pills in an RU 486 abortion, against the recommendations of the Food and Drug Administration, which makes these abortions more profitable for the abortion group and more dangerous for women," she explained.

"Planned Parenthood gives women a single RU 486 pill, instead of three recommended by the FDA, then ups the dosage of the less expensive prostaglandin, misoprostol," Lehman continued.

Planned Parenthood also cuts back the number of appointments the FDA recommends for an RU 486 abortion from three to two, which also increases Planned Parenthood’s profits by reducing office and staffing expenses.

However, that puts women’s health at risk by not having the standard number of follow-up appointments to make sure the abortion was completed no medical complications have occurred.

That’s important given that, as of December 2006, there have been eight known deaths associated with mifepristone in the U.S., nine life-threatening incidents, 116 blood transfusions, and 232 hospitalizations.

In total, more than 1,100 women have had medical problems after using the drug as of that date.

The deviation from FDA guidelines is important given that Planned Parenthood already changed its own internal guidelines once after its instructions appeared to cause the deaths of women taking the abortion pill.

A July study suggested Planned Parenthood was at fault.

Planned Parenthood had been telling women to use the abortion drug vaginally, even though the FDA indicated oral use is safer for women.

It wasn’t until four California women all died within a week of using the abortion drug they received from Planned Parenthood abortion businesses that it changed its policy to conform to the FDA protocol.

University of Michigan scientists suggested the off-label use of a drug given in association with the abortion pill may be responsible for the women’s deaths.

Related web sites:
Iowa Right to Life – https://www.IowaRTL.org

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