Source:   WorldNetDaily; August 29, 2002


by Jane Chastain

[Pro-Life Infonet Note:  Jane Chastain is a WorldNetDaily columnist and a
co-host of the Judicial Watch Report radio show, heard daily from 12 to 2
p.m. EST on the USA Radio Network.]

Abortion was not safe before Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision
that legalized the procedure, and the dirty little secret is, it may be
even less safe today - even in the privacy of our own homes.

We have more laws safeguarding the animals we take to the vet than we have
safeguarding the health of the 1.3 million women a year who have abortions.
Radical feminist groups that have aggressively promoted this $90
billion-a-year industry have contributed to the current climate.

Furthermore, the abortion drug RU-486, which was approved by the Food and
Drug Administration in September of 2000, may be one of the most dangerous
- as well as traumatic - ways to terminate a pregnancy.

A citizens petition was delivered to the Food and Drug Administration last
week by one of this nation's largest women's organizations and two
physicians groups designed to force the agency to take another look at the
abortion drug RU-486, Mifeprex, and its prostaglandin chaser, Misoprostol.

The 92-page petition from Concerned Women for America, the American
Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Christian
Medical Association charged that the FDA bowed to political pressure and
violated the Administrative Procedure Act as well as its own
"well-established standards" when approving this drug combo.

These groups charge that the trials "were not blinded, randomized or
concurrently controlled." In other words, physicians or groups who were
heavily biased may have conducted these trials or had a vested interest in
proving that RU-486 was safe.

To be sure, the groups that delivered this petition have their own bias on
abortion. They don't think the decision to take the life of a child in the
womb ever is the proper decision, unless it is done to save the life of the
mother. However, it's about time somebody stepped up to the plate and
pointed out that these drugs are not only deadly to the child, they can be
damaging, if not deadly, to the child's mother.

Where are all the groups that regularly go to the mat on women's health
issues? They have assumed their usual heads buried in the sand, don't
give-us-any-bad-news when it concerns abortion posture.

In April, Danco Laboratories, which manufacturers the drug for the
Population Council, the New York group that holds the U.S. rights to
Mifeprex, announced several adverse events among women who took the drugs
between June of 1998 and November of 2001.

These events included ruptures of ectopic pregnancies, resulting in one
death. Danco also reported two serious bacterial infections and one of
those resulted in death. A 21-year-old woman suffered a heart attack after
taking the deadly duo, although the manufacturer insists that there wasn't
an established "causal" relationship between the drugs and these serious
complications and deaths.

FDA data also reported another 22 women required hospitalization or another
"intervention to prevent permanent impairment or damage" after taking
Mifeprex during the same time period.

A report from the Family Research Council, "When There's Little 'Care' in
Women's Health Care," chronicles how our government has failed to take the
necessary steps to protect the women who go into the nation's abortion
mills thinking they are perfectly safe.

Before Roe, feminists lamented that 5,000 to 10,000 women a year died
because of illegal back-alley abortions - which was a lie. In 1972, the
Centers for Disease Control reported that 39 women died as a result of
illegal abortions. Today, how many deaths occur from "legal" abortions? The
truth is we don't know and apparently the CDC isn't anxious to find out.

The CDC collects abortion statistics on a "voluntary" basis from state and
local health departments. Not all states participate. Though abortion
deaths increasingly are making it into our newspapers, few of these deaths
have been included in these reports.

Medical data now is entered by computerized code. The FRC report states
that those responsible for entering this data have found "that any attempt
to code a death due to abortion under abortion yields a reject message from
the computer programs provided by the National Center for Heath Statistics
(a division of the CDC)."

The Supreme Court found a "right to privacy" lurking around in the
secondary shadows of the Constitution and applied that "right" to abortion
in Roe. Now it seems that the government is determined to keep the secrets
of this largely unregulated industry in the shadows.

It's time to shine the light of truth on this subject and a good place to
begin is with the FDA's approval process for RU-486.

--
When using items from the Pro-Life Infonet in your newsletter, please
include our web site (www.prolifeinfo.org) or email address
(infonet@prolifeinfo.org). Thanks!