Abortion Advocates Deny Ulipristal an Abortion Drug as FDA Hearing Comes
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 9, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — As the FDA prepares for an advisory committee to meet on June 17 to consider whether the agency should approve a new drug called ulipristal (ellaOne), abortion advocates have ramped up their campaign to deny the drug causes abortions and are getting media help to do so.
This week, a USA Today article falsely portrayed the drug as a "morning after pill" and "a new emergency contraceptive" that can prevent pregnancy "five days after sex."
The truth is that ellaOne is a drug that will almost always cause an abortion because it is designed to prevent implantation — when a unique human being days after conception attaches to the lining of the uterine wall and begins the next stage of the pregnancy process.
In other words, the drug acts as an abortion agent by destroying the life of the new person conferred at conception, or fertilization.
That’s the view of a national organization of pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists as well as a pro-life legal group — both of which have filed papers with the FDA asking the agency not to approve the drug for over the counter sales.
The USA Today article feature an interview with Paul Fine, co-author of a study examining ulipristal and professor of obstetrics, gynecology and urology at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine.
While that sounds like a strong mainstream background, Fine also has a pro-abortion agenda — as he is medical director of Planned Parenthood of Houston, southeast Texas and Louisiana.
"If it were my daughter, I’d want her to have ulipristal rather than Plan B in her medicine cabinet," he said, noting the ellaOne drug is stronger and works further out from conception.
He disputed the comments AUL and the American Association of Pro Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists filed with the FDA, saying "ulipristal did not cause abortions in women who got pregnant after taking it."
Still, he admitted more safety data is needed before the abortion drug should be sold without a prescription.
Mailee Smith, an attorney with Americans United for Life, told LifeNews.com that Fine "ignores the fact that, unlike levonorgestrel, Ulipristal goes a step further: it can disrupt the development of an already-implanted embryo."
"Its chemical make-up is not akin to levonorgestrel; instead, its parent compound is RU-486, the well-known abortion drug. To compare Ulipristal to levonorgestrel, or Plan B, is incredibly misleading. Ulipristal is an abortion drug," she added.
A study in England confirms the pro-life perspective that ulipristal acts as an abortion drug.
Anna Glasier, of NHS Lothian in Edinburgh, led a study of more than 5,500 women in the UK published online in The Lancet medical journal. It found fewer pregnancies among those women given the ellaOne drug within five days of intercourse.
And for women who took the drug between 3-5 days after having sex, only women taking the traditional morning after pill became pregnant. They’s because all of the women using ulipristal during that time period had abortions.
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