Ten Years Later, RU 486 Abortion Drug Killed One Million Children, Hurt Women
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 27, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — This weekend marked the tenth anniversary of the Clinton administration approving the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn children and hurt women. The drug has killed at least eight women in the United States and dozens around the world.
In January 2008, RU 486 maker Danco Laboratories announced approximately 13 percent of all abortions in the United States involve mifepristone — a number that may seem low but it is double the number of women who used the abortion drug in 2001.
The report also showed 57 percent of places that do abortions now have the abortion drug, compared with just 33 percent in 2001.
Ultimately, Danco indicated that 840,000 women in the United States have had abortions with its dangerous drug – a number that is very likely over one million in the two and a half years that have passed.
That’s disheartening news to Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America, who spoke with LifeNews.com about the depressing anniversary.
"Ten years ago we warned that RU-486 has only one purpose: to kill a human being. And it could claim two lives, the baby and the mother. Today we mourn the thousands of lives lost to this unnecessary and dangerous abortion drug," she said.
But Wright points out that the drug has had terrible ramifications for women.
According to FDA reports as of December 2006, there have now 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.
Nearly four years since those initial figures, the Obama administration has not published new totals, which could have well over 1,500 women in the United States alone facing significant problems after using the mifepristone abortion drug.
Wright says these women would have been spared the problems if the Clinton administration had done a better job investigating the problems associated with it.
"CWA extensively documented how the FDA, under intense political pressure, violated its rules that protect patients from harmful drugs in order to push RU-486 onto the market. Politicians like Sen. Barbara Boxer leaned on the FDA to bypass their basic requirements for drugs, and in doing so claimed a victory for abortionists but a loss for women," Wright said.
She said the Planned Parenthood abortion business is also responsible for the deaths of and injuries to women at the hands of the RU 486 abortion pill.
Planned Parenthood previously told women using it to use the drug vaginally instead of orally, as recommended by the FDA. That causes the introduction of bacteria that resulted in lethal infections causing their deaths.
Although Planned Parenthood eventually changed its protocol to follow the FDA suggestion to take the drug orally, it still dispenses improper doses of the drug that could still place women at risk.
"Planned Parenthood continues to tell women that RU-486 is ‘extremely safe’ even after thousands of young women like Holly Patterson have died, hemorrhaged, suffered life-threatening infections and excruciating pain," Wright complained.
Rather than backing down from dispensing the abortion drug, Planned Parenthood is increasingly giving it to women, and a March survey of Planned Parenthood abortion centers finds a higher number are giving women the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug.
The number of locations dispensing the dangerous abortion drug has risen 130 percent since its last national survey, even though the overall number of Planned Parenthood centers is on the decline.
Wright says the FDA has not adjusted its methods of approving abortion drugs — even in the face of women suffering from deaths and injuries as a result of the mifepristone pill.
“Rather than learn from this sordid lesson, the FDA continued the pattern ten years later by approving another abortion drug called ella. Ella is chemically similar to RU-486 and likewise not fully tested," Wright said. "It also was pushed by the abortion lobby with no concern for women’s well-being. The FDA neglected to require basic studies that would determine if ella can cause birth defects in babies that survive."
“When it comes to abortion drugs, an FDA approval merely means ‘buyer beware,’" she said.
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