Girl Killed by Abortion Drug Followed Old Planned Parenthood Policy

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 18, 2011   |   10:48AM   |   Lisbon, Portugal

A teenage girl who was recently killed by a deadly infection following usage of the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug followed the same Planned Parenthood protocols for taking the drug that claimed the lives of women in the United States.

As LifeNews.com reported this week, the Portuguese girl in question died after an abortion with the RU 486 abortion drug caused Clostridium sordellii septic shock, the same deadly infection that caused the death of Holly Patterson and other women in the U.S.

The information about the abortion death came in the abstract of a study accepted for publication and submitted to the recent 21st European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) conference held from May 7-10 in Milan, Italy. The publication revealed the 16-year-old received 200 mg of oral mifepristone followed by 800 of vaginal misoprostol.

She went to the maternity hospital’s emergency room five days after receiving mifepristone, complaining of lipothimia in the night before and abdominal cramping.

“On admission, she was conscient, afebrile and hypotense,” the study indicated. “A few hours later she developed a rapid onset-sepsis with marked leukocitosis, hemoconcentration, and severe metabolic acidosis. The patient underwent a hysterectomy and uterus biopsy cultures and anatomopathological analysis were requested. Patient was transferred to intensive care unit and died 18 hours after presenting to emergency.”

So far, eight women in the U.S. have died from the use of the abortion drug, including women going to Planned Parenthood abortion centers in California. Planned Parenthood had been telling women to use the abortion drug vaginally, as the Portuguese teen used it, 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.

In June 2008, a new study from 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.

When women get the abortion drug RU 486, they take two pills. One, mifepristone, essentially deprives the growing unborn child of food and water and the second, misoprostol, causes contractions allowing women to give birth to the dead baby. The second, misoprostol, causes contractions that essentially cause a miscarriage of the body of the deceased unborn child.

In animal and cell culture studies, the University of Michigan researchers found that misoprostol, when given directly in the reproductive tract, suppresses key immune responses and can allow a normally non-threatening bacterium, Clostridium sordellii, to cause deadly infection. According to post-mortem reports on the women who died from the abortion drug in the U.S., this vaginal use allowed the bacteria to cause the fatal infections. When absorbed through the stomach, however, the drug did not compromise immune defenses or cause illness, the researchers found.

Dr. Randy O’Bannon, the director of research for National Right to Life, told LifeNews.com at the time that earlier studies showed the mifepristone drug also caused problems.

“Authors of this study claim that vaginally administered misoprostol may suppress the body’s immune response, making infection more likely. Earlier studies have suggested that RU 486, or mifepristone, the first drug used in the chemical abortion process, may itself have immunosuppressive qualities,” he explained.

O’Bannon said he’s not convinced the University of Michigan study is the final chapter in the story of the women’s abortion drug deaths.

“As long as both of these drugs are being used as abortifacients, it will be important to try and nail down how one or both of these drugs contributed to eight known infection deaths among women to took the two drug regimen,” he said.

Regardless of the study’s findings, Dr. O’Bannon told LifeNews.com that abortion facilities that violated the FDA abortion drug protocols put women at risk.

“Though the FDA specifically cautioned that the safety of at home vaginal self administration of misoprostol had not been established, many clinics had their patients follow this course anyway,” he said.

“That much of the abortion industry disregarded the FDA protocol for so long displays either a disregard for the safety of women or a sense that they somehow knew better than the government’s top scientists,” O’Bannon concluded. “In either case, these are hardly the sort of people women should be trusting with their lives.”

Despite the eventual change in the guidelines from vaginal to oral, Planned Parenthood apparently continues to violate the FDA usage suggestions by telling women to take the second part of the abortion pill process at home. The FDA says that should be done in a medical office to monitor the women for any complications.