Italian Hospital to Become the First Today to Distribute Dangerous Abortion Drug

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 7, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Italian Hospital to Become the First Today to Distribute Dangerous Abortion Drug

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 7
, 2010

Bari, Italy (LifeNews.com) — An Italian hospital in this city is expected to become the first in the nation to distribute the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug that has potentially killed 30 women. The decision came after regional government officials in three locales said they would not allow the abortion drugs to be disseminated.

Doctors at Bari’s Policlinic Hospital have said they accepted 10 boxes of the abortion drugs and they already have a 25-year-old woman ready to subject herself and her unborn child to them.

The drug, also known as known as mifepristone, was supposed to be available last week at hospitals but some officials and the Catholic Church were opposed.

The implementation of the new regulations allowing the abortion drug will move forward as pro-abortion doctors meet to implement them.

"Next week there will be a meeting of gynaecologists who do not object to the RU 486 pill to lay down guidelines for its correct use," the southern Puglia region’s health counselor, Tommaso Fiore, told Adnkronos. "It’s not up to politicians to decide such issues."

They are in the minority as polls have shown about 70 percent of Italian physicians refuse to distribute the abortion drug.

But the AKI news service indicated the newly-elected governor of Piedmont, Roberto Cota, and Luca Zaia, the northeastern Veneto region’s new governor, both blocked the distribution of the drugs.

Cota said he will make sure hospitals, the only places authorized to distribute the abortion drug, do not get them. He said he hopes the drugs "rot in warehouses."

Pope Benedict XVI hailed the decision and said during his Holy Thursday Mass, said, "It is important Christians not accept a wrong that is enshrined in law — for example the killing of innocent unborn children."
Meanwhile, AP reported Monsignor Renato Fisichella, the Vatican’s top bioethics official, said the officials’ move was "in defense of life and therefore it has my praise."

The abortion drug has killed at least 13 women worldwide and injured more than 1,100 in the United States alone, according to 2006 FDA figures.

The world may never know how many thousands of women have been injured, or even killed, by the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug. The best guess is 13 women have been killed as a result of the mifepristone abortion pill — with documented cases in the United States, Canada, England, Sweden and France.

But last summer, the maker of the drug in Europe said 29 women have died. https://www.lifenews.com/int1282.html

If the information given to the Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA) by European abortion drug maker Exelgyn is correct, then more than twice as many women have died from the abortion drug globally than the pro-life community has thought.

According to a report by the Italian news agency ASCA, Exelgyn provided the figure of 29 women dying from the abortion pill to the Italy Ministry of Health, which, in turn, gave the information to the AIFA drug regulatory agency.

Eugenia Roccella, the sub-secretary of the Italian health office, also reportedly confirmed the figure she received from Exelgyn to L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

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