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Pro-life advocates expressed dismay with new Food and Drug Administration guidelines that effectively expand how pregnant women can use RU-486, a drug that induces abortion.
The new rules, announced March 30, allow a woman to use RU-486—known generically as mifepristone and by its brand name Mifeprex—later into pregnancy and with fewer visits to a doctor.
Cardinal Dolan, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee, called the FDA’s decision irresponsible.
“The unofficial, off-label use of RU-486 is now the new normal, paving the way for the destruction of even more innocent lives, and putting women and girls at risk for all the life-changing effects of abortion,” the cardinal said in an April 1 statement.
“Far from wanting abortion to be ‘rare,’ abortion advocates are celebrating this expanded use as opening an ever-widening door to abortion,” he said. “They are equally celebrating the FDA’s neglect of women’s health. Women have died from this drug, and many who used it after eight weeks of pregnancy ended up returning for surgical abortions. This anguish, too, will now be visited on more women.”
Deirdre McQuade, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, told Catholic News Service, “People need to know this is a very, very serious expansion of the use of RU-486.”
She expressed concern that women and girls will be faced with the possibility of delivering a “recognizably human child” at home with no one in attendance.
“Women panic. They don’t know what to do. Who’s there for them to care for them?” she said.
Ms. McQuade also expressed concern that the new guidelines allow non-physicians to dispense or prescribe the drug. “This raises a huge question. Do we want nurses, physician’s assistants, non-MDs overseeing the prescription of a drug that has very serious consequences for women?”
Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, an advisory board member with the Catholic Association, said in a March 31 statement that women “will feel the deplorable effects of this change” when they will return home “to endure a painful and shocking process by themselves and of course their babies.”
Dr. Christie, a radiologist who said she performs fetal ultrasound daily, explained that a 10-week-old unborn child is “a well-developed and recognizably human creature.”
“Head, hands, feet and vigorous movement are evident even to the untrained eye,” Dr. Christie said.
“Also at issue is the psychological and physical impact on a woman, sent home to experience the very painful cramps of a chemical abortion of a fetus that size,” she added. “Besides the considerable blood loss and pain, there is every chance of a woman recognizing a fully formed fetus amongst the expelled ‘products of conception.’”
Randall K. O’Bannon, director of education and research at National Right to Life, said in a statement March 30 that the new guidelines do not make chemical abortion safer.
The new FDA guidelines for RU-486 brings the regimen for taking the drug in line with what has become standard medical practice:
• Extending the period when a woman can take the drug to 70 days of pregnancy from 49 days.
• Lowering the dosage to 200 milligrams from 600 milligrams.
• Reducing the number of visits to a doctor by a woman to two from three.
RU-486 is used with another drug called misoprostol, a prostaglandin, to induce a chemical abortion by blocking the hormone progesterone needed to sustain a pregnancy.
In his statement, Cardinal Dolan offered the Catholic Church’s assistance to “any woman who finds herself pregnant” and needs help. He invited women to “come to Catholic agencies for nonjudgmental, caring assistance.”
“Catholic Charities, pregnancy help centers, and many parishes stand at the ready to assist those in need,” the cardinal said. —CNS
