Abortion pill offers no easy solutions

Thursday, July 5, 2001

By GREGORY RUMMO

The Wall Street Journal re cently reported that a $2 million national ad campaign for the controversial abortion pill, RU-486, is being unleashed on America's women. The advertisements are slated to appear beginning this month in a handful of popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan, People, and Vanity Fair.

RU-486 was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in September. The FDA approves a pharmaceutical after many years of scrutiny in the laboratory and in clinical trials where the drug is tested for safety and efficacy in humans. When the FDA reviewers are satisfied, the drug is "approved" and deemed as "safe and effective."

But something odd happened with the approval of RU-486. This was the first time this government regulatory body, which oversees the safety of the nation's food and pharmaceuticals, approved a drug meant not to preserve a life but to destroy another human being as though it were an infectious disease or parasite.

It seems that the FDA has forgotten the Hippocratic Oath, an ancient code of ethics followed by physicians. The oath stipulates, in part: "I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion."

And safety? That's an interesting matter for debate. The drug is certainly not safe to the developing life inside the mother's uterus. The FDA has approved a deadly poison and declared it "safe."

On top of this, there are lingering questions about the drug's safety to the woman -- despite what you may have heard to the contrary. Abortion proponents have touted RU-486 as a simple method for ending pregnancy.

On the surface, this would appear to be true -- what could be easier than popping a pill? Even the copy for the ads -- "You have the freedom to choose, and now you have another safe abortion choice," along with the picture of the "crisply dressed woman gazing out a window" -- all seem to imply safety and simplicity.

But this is hardly the case.

Women have been sold a bill of goods. A chemical abortion using RU-486 is not simple. It's not just one pill, and there may be numerous complications and side effects. There also have been some deaths of women reported during the testing of the regimen.

Dr. George Grant, author of the book "The Legacy of Planned Parenthood," has characterized RU-486 as "horrific" in a recent radio interview on "Focus on the Family." Grant dispelled the myths about RU-486 being uncomplicated, safe, and pain-free.

"It is portrayed as a miracle," he said. But a chemical abortion performed with RU-486 is "much more painful, requires a longer period of treatment, more office visits, and has longer-term effects than any of the current surgical abortion procedures," he said. One of the side effects mentioned by Grant is a 70-day menses (period) following an abortion using RU-486.

A chemical abortion using RU-486 is really a regimen of at least two drugs. Mifepristone, sold under the brand name Mifeprex, blocks the effects of progesterone and thus ends the life of the developing infant. A second drug, misoprostal, is typically used to induce labor. But in the case of abortion, it promotes the expulsion of the dead infant; it is required as part of a supervised regimen including three visits to the abortion practitioner's office.

But the bad news doesn't end with complications and potential side effects.

There also have been reports of women who have died from an RU-486 abortion. "The number of women who have died in the testing of RU-486 ought to create astonishment," Grant said. "Nine in France, 18 in Italy died -- most of them from cardiac arrest."

Grant believes the FDA has made a mistake approving RU-486 and he believes that its approval will ultimately be withdrawn.

"People are made in the image of God," Grant explains, "and therefore, there is a sanctity attached to human life."

God has declared the creation and development of a human life as sacred. The author of Psalm 139 praises God for his intimate knowledge of every human life -- from its very beginning. "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. . . . For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb."

When humans try to impose their destructive ways on this process, there will always be unexpected complications and consequences.

The Bible warns in Galatians 6:7: "Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows."

Now there's a warning you won't see in any of those magazine ads.

Gregory Rummo is a business executive who belongs to Madison Avenue Baptist Church in Paterson, where he also serves as choir director. You may e-mail him at GregoryJRummo@aol.com

You can e-mail his editor, Lisa Haddock at Haddock@northjersey.com
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