LIFE DIGEST: RU 486 death toll for women at 29
- Aug 4, 2009
Use of the abortion drug RU 486 has resulted in the deaths of 29 women worldwide, according to a new report.
Exeglyn, the European manufacturer of RU 486, reported the total, which is more than twice the previous estimate, to the Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA), LifeNews.com said in a July 31 article based on news media sources. The estimate had been 13 deaths, according to LifeNews.
Also in this edition: Senate bill excludes pro-life policy and Abortion boat no longer at sea.
AIFA, meanwhile, approved RU 486 for sale in Italy for the first time, LifeNews reported. Previously, only surgical abortions had been available.
Abortions have decreased in Italy for more than two decades. The number of abortions has fallen from more than 234,000 in 1982 to less than 137,000 in 2004, according to LifeNews.
Eight women’s deaths in the United States have been associated with RU 486, as well as nine life-endangering situations, about 120 blood transfusions and more than 200 hospitalizations, Sen. Jim DeMint, R.-S.C., said in 2006. DeMint is a leading Senate opponent of the federal government’s approval of the abortion drug.
RU 486, also known as mifepristone, is used as the first part in a two-step process in the first seven weeks of pregnancy. Mifepristone causes the lining of the uterus to release the embryonic child, resulting in his death. A second drug, misoprostol, is taken two days after mifepristone and causes the uterus to contract, expelling the baby.
The FDA approved the sale of RU 486 in the U.S. in 2000, four months before President Clinton finished his second term.
Senate bill excludes pro-life policy
Abortion rights advocates in Congress are seeking to drop another restriction on federal funding of the procedure.
A Senate spending bill – the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, S. 1432 – does not include a traditional pro-life policy. The measure normally includes language authored by Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., that prevents any funds from being used to pay for abortions to federal employees through their health care program.
While the Smith Amendment is absent from the Senate version, which has yet to be voted on by the full chamber, the House of Representatives included his language in the version it adopted in July.
The House measure, however, excluded traditional language that barred federal and local funds from paying for abortions in the District of Columbia. Pro-lifers from both political parties sought to restore the policy but failed. That provision, known as the Dornan Amendment, has been in effect since 1996.
Various studies have shown limitations on government funding of abortion produce a decline in the number of abortions. In June, the Guttmacher Institute, which is identified with the abortion rights movement, reported its review of literature on the subject showed about 25 percent of the women who would have had Medicaid-funded abortions chose instead to have their babies when they were barred from using public money.
Abortion boat no longer at sea
The Dutch abortion boat is no longer afloat.
Women on Waves (WoW) will not sail a yacht off the coasts of Nicaragua, Chile, Brazil and Argentina as planned because of a legal change in The Netherlands, the newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported July 27. The Dutch government decided in May to restrict the distribution of abortion pills to specific clinics, excluding WoW’s boat in the process, according to the newspaper.
After the change, women from other countries who board a WoW boat “risk prosecution in their own country if the Dutch health inspection rules that we are working outside the law,” WoW founder Rebecca Gomperts said, according to NRC Handelsblad. “That’s a risk we couldn’t take, so we had to call off the campaign.”
Gomperts envisaged a fleet of abortion boats when she started WoW, but the organization never reached the point where it carried out surgical abortions on board. Instead, it distributed abortion pills.
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