University researchers are joining a growing crowd urging national policy makers and legislators to rethink their stance on RU-486, also called medical abortion, in the coming months.
The FDA approved RU-486 in September 2000. However, doctors have been reluctant to back the procedure. Women’s Health researchers at the University’s Center for the Study of Women in Society have completed their report titled Understanding Medical Abortion: Policy, Politics, and Women’s Health and plan to deliver it to the public this week.
With today marking the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, the release of the report is especially poignant.
“We’re going to get it to policy makers, media and anyone else who is interested in medical abortion,” said S. Marie Harvey, director of a research program on women’s health and lead researcher for the report.
Medical abortion uses two different drugs, mifepristone and methotrexate, to induce abortion without surgery. Unlike emergency contraception, which can be taken within a few days of intercourse to prevent pregnancy, RU-486 is doctor-prescribed and requires a minimum of three visits to a clinic or doctor’s office. RU-486 can be administered during the first nine weeks of pregnancy; after the ninth week the drugs are ineffective in terminating pregnancy.
Harvey said the issue has been bogged down by politics.
“Misinformation about medical abortion spread by anti-abortion forces has prevented legislators and policy makers from providing women access to this safe and effective medical procedure, ” Harvey said in a press release Monday.
Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Gayle Atteberry refuted Harvey’s claim that any misleading information has been produced by anti-abortion organizations. She further argues that policymakers have in no way influenced the medical community.
“I will challenge them to tell me which misinformation is out there; I know of none,” Atteberry said. “There is not one single law, bill or restriction that affects doctors’ right to prescribe RU-486. The doctors have chosen of their own free will not to prescribe it.”
Some of the report’s researchers say they believe many doctors have chosen not to provide RU-486 because of the obstacles involved. The report calls for a national media campaign to inform the public about the safety, availability and effectiveness of medical abortions.
Members of the Bush administration have been publicly opposed to the use of abortion-inducing drugs and have made several attempts to limit their accessibility.
The recent appointment of Dr. W. David Hager, a known opponent of abortion and author of the book, “As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now,” to the Food and Drug Administration’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, may further reinforce the administration’s stance on medical abortion, according to women’s rights advocate Kitty Piercy.
“We all had hoped that RU-486 would provide a nonsurgical option for women … but we have found, as the study shows, that RU-486 is caught up in the same political problems that affect all abortion options,” said Piercy, head of public affairs for Planned Parenthood and a former state representative. “Every woman who cares about having freedom over her own body needs to stand up now, in defense of reproductive rights.”