The Abortion Pill: Chemical Coathanger
CHAPTER 34 — THE ABORTION PILL: CHEMICAL COATHANGER
American Life League
I resent it when people present the very early interruption of pregnancy as killing a baby, morally or physically. I think it's a crime to say that.
Etienne-Emile Baulieu, inventor of the RU-486 abortion pill.[1]
Anti-Life Philosophy.
RU-486 is properly called an 'abortifacient.' Because it is a drug that can induce a menstrual period after the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, it can terminate a woman's pregnancy in its earliest stages.
National Abortion Rights Action League.[2]
An early abortion pill will be a boon to poor women in developing countries. More than 250,000 women die every year all over the world from botched illegal abortions, and most of these deaths will be averted by the advent of a safe and legal abortion pill. In addition, the abortion pill could simply end the need for surgical abortion in developed countries like the United States.
The History of RU-486.
Dreams of an 'Ultimate Pill.'
The lives of unborn children used to mean something to our society and to the producers of the old "high-dose" birth control pill. The pharmaceutical companies actually went out of their way to avoid killing preborn babies as they concocted their chemical mixtures.
However, as national morals loosened, especially after abortion was legalized in the United States, there was simply no need to consider the effects of various "birth control" methods on the life of the developing human being. The only criterion that mattered was the health of the mother.
And so, the ideal "contraceptive" gradually evolved into a device or drug that would not only prevent ovulation and fertilization, but eliminate early pregnancies as well. A quarter-century ago, Garrett Hardin and other population theorists were dreaming of such a major "contraceptive" of the future, which would most likely take the form of an abortifacient pill.[3]
The Origin of the Pill.
The manufacturer of the abortion pill Mifepristone (originally labeled ZK 95.890, but now classified as Roussel-Uclaf 38486, or RU-486 for short) is the French company Groupe Roussel-Uclaf, a subsidiary of the West German pharmaceutical company Hoechst. The inventor of the death pill is Etienne-Emile Baulieu of France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research.
An affiliate of Roussel-Uclaf, Hoechst-Roussel Pharmaceuticals of Somerville, New Jersey, holds the option rights for the drug in the United States, but has declined so far to introduce RU-486 to this country. Hoechst-Roussel is a part of Hoechst Celanese, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hoechst AG. Celanese has average annual sales of $1.7 billion.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently conducting detailed tests with RU-486 and a similar drug, ZK 98.734, produced by Schering AG.[4] It is obvious that WHO would have no particular interest in RU-486 unless the pill would aid its population control programs. Dr. Baulieu has cited his own concern about the "complications of overpopulation" as one of the reasons he developed the abortion pill.[5]
First the Jews, Now the Unborn.
It is a little-known but heavily ironic fact that Hoechst changed its name after World War II from its previous title of "I.G. Farben." It took this extraordinary action primarily in an attempt to shake its loathsome reputation. I.G. Farben made a tidy profit during the war from the manufacture of the cyanide gas Zyklon-B, used to exterminate the Jews in the 'showers' of the Nazi concentration camps! Now Farben's descendant will make millions by exterminating preborn babies.
Ironically, the pill's inventor, Etienne-Emile Baulieu, is Jewish. He was born in 1926 to a doctor named Leon Blum, and changed his name in 1942, presumably to avoid being killed by the Zyklon-B gas manufactured by the same company he works for today.
Just as I.G. Farben said that Zyklon-B would make it easier and less painful to exterminate Jews, Roussel-Uclaf now insists that RU-486 will make it easier to kill the preborn.
When will we ever learn our lessons from history?
Initial Distribution.
On September 23, 1988, the French government, which just happens to own 36.25 percent of Roussel's stock, approved distribution of the abortion pill on the condition that it be administered only in approved medical centers and only until the seventh week of pregnancy. The manufacturer was immediately swamped with tens of thousands of pro-life protest letters, and more than 20,000 French pro-life activists marched in Paris streets in opposition to the pill.[6]
Distribution is Temporarily Suspended.
For months, Dr. Edouard Sakiz, Roussel-Uclaf chairman, watched pickets outside his window at work. Pro-lifers publicly condemned his new product as "a chemical weapon that would poison the still-tiny children of a billion Third World mothers." Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, condemned the pill as being "extremely dangerous," both physically and morally.
On October 26, 1988, about one month after government approval of the pill, Roussel-Uclaf suspended distribution in China and France because of the "outcry of public opinion at home and abroad." Andre Ullman of Roussel-Uclaf, who helped develop the pill, said that a boycott figured heavily in the company's decision to stop making the drug.
The predictable backlash from the left wing was incredibly vehement, even by its low standards. Faye Wattleton, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, squawked that the suspension was "... a tragic display of cowardice and a shocking blow to women around the world."[7]
Liberation, France's largest left-wing daily newspaper, sneered at the Catholic Church in its front-page article entitled "The Diktat of the Bigots." The political weekly L'Evenement du Jeudi sniveled about "... the brutal return of the Inquisition." The French Family Planning Movement (including, of course, Planned Parenthood) trotted out their usual mix of tired slogans and twisted grammar to condemn "... this new assault by conservative religious forces. After having set the fires of intolerance with the Scorcese film ["The Last Temptation of Christ"], the traditionalists and Catholic reactionaries now want to impose their reactionary laws on women."[8]
Meanwhile, Baulieu was whipping up support for his death pill at the World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Rio de Janeiro before 9,500 doctors and researchers. He denounced Roussel-Uclaf and called the decision to stop making the pill "morally scandalous," a description that amused many French pro-lifers. Apparently, Baulieu has no problem at all engineering the deaths of millions. According to him, this genocide is perfectly legal and moral.
In a later article in the New York Times Magazine, Baulieu, making expert use of pro-abortion Newspeak, whined that "I resent it when people present the very early interruption of pregnancy as killing a baby, morally or physically. I think it's a crime to say that."[1]
And, in best pro-abortion "personally opposed" rhetoric, the man who might become responsible for more deaths than any other person in history said that "I don't like abortion and I don't like talking about it. I am a physician and would rather talk about saving life. I am not really for abortion, I am for women."[9]
The Government Steps In.
Then, on October 29, 1988, the French press reported that the government ordered the company to resume distribution of the death pill. Health Minister Claude Evin, quoting France's 1975 law legalizing abortion, stated that the pill was "the moral property of the women of France." Evin had invoked, for the very first time, a 1968 French law that allows the government to directly intervene when the "interests of public health" are endangered. Evin simpered that "I was doing what I could to make sure France did not surrender to pressure groups animated by archaic ideologies" [such as Christianity]?
The press lied about this incident, saying that the French government demanded that Roussel resume distribution of the pill. In reality, the government merely requested the company to resume distribution. In the interest of fairness, however, it must be noted that the 'request' was coercive Roussel-Uclaf would lose its license to manufacture the pill to another company if it did not comply with the government's wishes.
Baulieu, the killer pill's inventor, was now in the spotlight and mindlessly vomited the usual pro-death lies. "One hundred and fifty thousand women die annually from botched abortions. RU-486 could save the lives of thousands of women," he parroted. When asked for documentation, Baulieu simply ignored the questions in the pro-abort manner easily recognized all over the world.
Incredibly, pro-abortion groups even began to promote Baulieu for a Nobel Prize nomination! It would be interesting indeed to see how the Nobel Committee would justify elevating Baulieu to the same stature as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who labors to save life rather than destroy it, and who condemned abortion during her Nobel Prize acceptance lecture.
This dramatic move by the French government relieved Roussel-Uclaf of any responsibility for its actions, and company spokesmen merely shrugged their shoulders and said, in effect, "What can we do? The government has ordered us to continue." This total lack of resistance to government intrusion into its affairs made it quite plain that Roussel-Uclaf welcomed the diversion of attention and the shifting of moral responsibility to the French government so that it could get on with mass production of its astronomically profitable killing pill.
The Usual Slogans from the United States.
The invention of the abortion pill caused great excitement among pro-abortion groups in the United States. Several groups whose sole or primary purpose was to propagandize the public soon sprang up, including Every Child a Wanted Child (California) and the Reproductive Health Technologies Project (Washington, D.C.).
When the French government ordered the continued production of the pill, Kate Michelman of the United States National Abortion Rights Action League, attempting to cram as many trite slogans as possible into a single sentence, enthused that "The French government has taken a strong stand against intolerance and in favor of the health of women. We support this action and the message it sends to those who seek to impose their will on all of us."
Roussel-Uclaf spokesmen have insisted that the product was not intended to be a morning-after pill. Those familiar with the pro-abortion mentality know for certain that it indeed will become a morning-after pill, a convenient birth control method for women who don't want to be subject to the side effects of the regular birth control pill. After all, more than one-third of all women who get surgical abortions now use no method of contraception whatever!
The Situation in 1990.
A total of 793 French clinics were initially authorized to use the abortion pill. The cost for an RU-486 abortion was about $256, eighty percent of which was borne by the Socialist government.[9]
However, Roussel-Uclaf initially distributed the pill only in France and the People's Republic of China, because the company leadership was not eager to start a worldwide debate. In reality, they were particularly concerned about the financial muscle of American pro-life groups.
The Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Albert Decourtray, summed up the feelings of Christians everywhere neatly as he said that "The pill now produces a process which allows abortion to seem like a contraceptive. In other words, it tends purely and simply to numb the conscience about both the act itself and its moral gravity. A follower of Christ cannot accept it."
In November of 1988, the Vatican clarified its definition of abortion to include the use of drugs like RU-486, which are used specifically to kill the unborn child. Such use, they said, is an excommunicable offense for Catholics, the same as procuring a surgical 'elective' abortion. For further information on this position, read Chapter 43, "Catholic Church Position on Abortion."
How the Abortion Pill Works.
As an antiprogestin agent, RU-486 has properties that might offer theoretical value in Cushing's Disease (an adrenal disorder), meningioma (a largely benign brain tumor), and breast cancer, but despite some of the recent hype, studies to date have failed to show any benefit whatsoever in any of these conditions.
Canadian neurologist Paul Ranalli.[10]
The Mechanism.
All abortion pills that have been investigated to date employ or imitate progesterone, the hormone that signals the uterus to become receptive to the fertilized egg.
For example, the best-known abortion pill RU-486 contains a progesterone analogue (imposter) that 'plugs in' to the uterine progesterone receptors, but does not deliver the message that progesterone is supposed to transfer naturally. These hormone impostors are commonly labeled 'anti-hormones.'
Once the anti-hormone has occupied the progesterone receptors, the fertilized ovum is denied attachment and simply starves for want of nutrients and oxygen. The ovum is expelled after several days.
Most abortion pills, including RU-486, are about 80 percent 'effective' when used by themselves, and about 95 percent effective when accompanied by one or two subsequent injections of synthetic prostaglandin E or Sulprotone. The abortion pills are primarily intended for use on babies of less than five weeks gestation, and their killing efficiency decreases dramatically past seven weeks' gestation.
Naturally, pro-abortionists know that the RU-486 pill is a true abortifacient and, in fact, that it was designed to be a true abortifacient. However, they recognize the value in lying to the public about the intended effects of the pill, because they know that the public is much more comfortable with contraception than it is with abortion.
Lying to the public has always been a favorite strategy of the pro-abortionists, as revealed by the National Abortion Federation in an article entitled "Successful Strategies: Managing the Media;" "When polls have been conducted on RU-486, the new French Pill, the results very depending on how the question is asked. If RU-486 is referred to as an "abortion pill," it has significantly less support than if it is called a new form of birth control. In many polls, the description can change support by as much as 15-20 points and determine if a majority of those polled are in favor of the pill."[11]
The Propaganda.
The pro-abortion forces who would like to bring the anti-baby pill to this country are employing the old "bait and switch" tactic as one of their methods. They insist that the pill will cure a wide range of ills, and that is why they really want to bring it to the United States, and, of course, that is why no reasonable person would want to oppose it.
For example, Dr. Louise Tyrer, Vice-President of Medical Affairs for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, asserted that "We must fight to ensure that scientific progress and the right to practice medicine in the best interest of our patients is not stifled by the ideological perspectives of a few who would force their moral views on the rest of the world."[12]
At a House subcommittee hearing on November 19, 1990, pro-abortion researchers cited a long list of ailments that could supposedly be cured or ameliorated by the drug: AIDS, cancers of the breast and ovaries, Cushing's Syndrome, brain and prostate cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, hypertension, and even obesity. Naturally, they made no mention of the abortifacient character of the pill.
The RU-486 pushers never state categorically that the pill is useful in treating other illnesses, because no researcher has ever provided a bit of evidence or written any paper showing that RU-486 is any good for anything other than destroying unborn babies.[13] So the pushers take advantage of emotion and hint around, loading their sentences with enough disclaimers as to make them scientifically worthless, such as "... which suggests that RU-486 may have potential value in AIDS."[14]
These claims are so spurious, and the propaganda so transparent, that even committed pro-abortionists are voicing their opposition to RU-486. For example, three women professors have extensively documented the dangers of RU-486 and the claims of efficacy against various diseases, and conclude that "These claims have an all-too-wondrous ring of promise subsequently turned peril." Their book, entitled RU 486: Misconceptions, Myths, and Morals, also describe how the abortion pill increases instead of decreases physician control and how it is dumped on Third World women.[15]
Pro-lifers must not be fooled by the typical anti-life lies about the abortion pill. The pro-aborts obviously could not care less about other alleged uses of the pill. Otherwise, they would have been involved in fighting other diseases long ago. Their sole purpose in bringing RU-486 to the United States is to promote abortion by making baby-killing even more private and difficult to oppose than it is now.
The Abortion Pill Manufacturers.
Upjohn.
Upjohn, the king of the New Abortionists, originally marketed three Prostin products which had only one use: to abort women in their second trimester. Prostin F2 Alpha was injected directly into the bag of waters to induce miscarriage. Prostin E2 was a suppository. Prostin 15M was an intramuscular injection.
All three Prostins induced miscarriage, and Upjohn was seriously considering research into an abortion pill. However, the Prostins had severe side effects, including uterine rupture, and so their use was limited in favor of the saline ("salting out") abortion technique, which is itself rapidly falling out of favor.
The National Right to Life Committee has maintained a rigorous boycott of Upjohn since the company introduced these products in the early 1970s. Partially as a result of this boycott and the accompanying adverse publicity, Upjohn has suspended research and development of an "improved" prostaglandin, and Prostin F2 Alpha has been removed from the market. Prostin E2 and Prostin 15M, however, are still in use.
Winthrop Sterling.
Winthrop Sterling of New York City, owned by Eastman Kodak, was in the preliminary stages of abortion pill development, but after evaluating the effects of boycotts and national publicity upon the Upjohn Company, decided to place research on its product on permanent hold.
Searle.
Cytotec is the newest abortion pill on the market. It is a prostaglandin drug used for ulcers, but it also causes miscarriage in about ten percent of all pregnant women who use it.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its use in December of 1988 for the prevention of stomach ulcers caused by other drugs. If Searle determines with further study that Cytotec is an effective abortifacient, it may decide to pursue research and development of a single-purpose abortion-causing pill.
Roussel-Uclaf.
This company manufactures the abortion pill RU-486. This pill represents the greatest threat of all to the unborn, because it has been extensively tested on French and Chinese women, and physicians and Neofeminist groups are pushing vigorously to have it distributed all over the world. Because of the threat it poses, the rest of this chapter is devoted to the RU-486 abortion pill.
Summary.
According to Dr. C. Wayne Bardin of the Population Council, no other companies have expressed a desire to import or manufacture any other abortion pill, probably because of the strength of the U.S. pro-life movement. But it is a safe bet that the pro-aborts will continue to push harder and harder for the pill in this country.
The Side Effects of the Abortion Pill.
Three Weeks or Bust.
There has been much dispute over when the RU-486 abortion pill begins to lose its killing power.
According to a September 29, 1989 New York Times article, "RU-486 starts losing effectiveness after six weeks of pregnancy." This, of course, is when most women are beginning to wonder if they are pregnant. In his March 1990 American Health interview, Dr. Baulieu confirmed that the drug's optimum use is "within three weeks of a missed period."
This means that women will inevitably take the drug as a "morning-after pill" or as a monthly insurance policy, and will therefore suffer enhanced and more severe side effects.
What Are These Side Effects?
It is quite obvious, because of its very nature, that RU-486 will cause serious health problems for women. The "old" high-dosage birth control pills (described in Chapter 31) caused a myriad of serious side effects, and those pills merely suppressed ovulation. It takes little imagination to conjure up visions of what the much more powerful RU-486 may do. All test reports written so far document severe bleeding, cramping, nausea, and vomiting.
Dr. Frank Young, head of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote in a June 9, 1989 letter to Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Cal) that RU-486 "... has potential side effects such as uterine bleeding, severe nausea, vomiting and weakness, which might require prompt medical intervention."
Just three days earlier, the FDA had issued an "import alert" that instructed its regional officers to seize any imported RU-486 pills not being used strictly for research purposes.[16]
It is also significant that the chemical composition of RU-486 is similar to DES (diethylstilbestrol), which caused reproductive system malformations and sterility in the female children of women who took it (giving rise to the term "DES daughters").
Of course, none of the reports written about the abortion pill mention the ultimate psychological trauma that they will cause. No longer will the abortionists be able to soothe women with gentle talk of "products of conception" that are ushered quickly and quietly out of their sight before they are even seen.
When a woman now cramps, bleeds, and delivers her tiny baby into her own hands, she will instantly know the truth. And the truth will hit her like a sledgehammer.
Side Effects on Preborn Babies.
The abortion pill's sole purpose is to kill preborn babies. According to Dr. Baulieu, the RU-486 pill proved 95.5% "effective" at destroying preborn babies during tests administered to 4,000 pregnant French women when given in tandem with prostaglandins.
However, the drug apparently has severe impacts on babies that it does not kill. Andre Ullman of Roussel's Medical Laboratories reported one instance where a woman had taken RU-486, had not aborted, and then changed her mind and wanted to keep the baby. She went into premature labor and delivered a severely deformed stillborn child at 6 month's gestation.
This means that surgical abortion will not disappear from the medical scene if RU-486 becomes widely distributed. Analysts on both sides of the issue agree that abortions in this country will nearly double if the ordeal of surgical abortion is largely removed. Assuming that two million RU-486 abortions take place every year, a 5% failure rate means that there will be a hundred thousand poor little deformed preborn babies every year that will still have to be disposed of by the sharp knives of the abortionists.
Precautions With Use.
Pro-lifers consider it very significant that even most pro-abortion experts consider RU-486 much too dangerous for use without proper medical supervision.
In April of 1989, Roussel sent a letter to all French abortionists acknowledging the risks associated with RU-486. This directive instituted stricter controls and procedures regarding its use, and urged all abortionists to install cardiac resuscitation equipment in every one of the clinics where RU-486 is administered. These precautions were due to the fact that at least one woman had died of cardiac arrest immediately after taking the drug.[17]
The letter cited a 9.5% complication rate among the 33,000 women who had been aborted with the pill. These effects included pelvic pain, weakness, nausea, vomiting, headache, and dizziness.[18]
A simultaneous Roussel release stated that the company had decided not to sell RU-486 to the People's Republic of China because the country's "medical facilities are too primitive" and were "not equipped to distribute it safely."[18]
However, Eleanor Smeal, former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), boldly displayed the blithe pro-abortion contempt for scientific evidence by proclaiming "our reading of the scientific data shows that there are essentially no side effects" related to RU-486.[19] As Abraham Lincoln once said, "It's hard to see the truth through a gold eagle [a $20 coin]."
Dr. Baulieu has said that the abortion pill provides "immense hope" for third-world women. These are the poor women who will inevitably fulfill their ignorant dual role as guinea pigs and profitable dumping grounds for contraceptives and abortifacients (such as the old high-dose birth control pills and many IUDs) that are considered simply too risky for use by women in the United States.
What RU-486 Means to the Abortionists.
Since evil people tend to remain mired in evil due to their almost limitless spiritual inertia, abortionists will remain abortionists, and abortions will still go on. The killers favor the abortion pill for three reasons;
(1) Their fees for an abortion will not decrease. Their charge for two or three office visits will be equal to or greater than the current cost of a surgical abortion. In fact, with the specter of surgical abortion all but eradicated, women will inevitably relax their vigilance in using more traditional methods of contraception. The number of abortions past five weeks gestation could more than double to more than three million annually!
(2) Privacy for the abortionist and the aborter will be total. It will be difficult if not impossible for pro-life activists to discover who is prescribing the pill. This means that rescue missions, sidewalk counseling, and picketing will all be rendered useless (or so the pro-aborts think), to be replaced with pro-life intelligence missions and infiltration tactics.
(3) No longer will abortionists have to endure the psychological trauma of seeing the dead babies that result from surgical abortion. The women will endure this trauma entirely by themselves as they deliver their tiny dead babies into their own hands at home.
RU-486 Availability in the United States.
Pro-Abortion Strategy.
The killing pill is not yet available for distribution in the United States, although it is being tested in California. However, if RU-486 is finally approved for consumption by the Food and Drug Administration, it is expected that no large pharmaceutical companies will touch it, because they simply have too many financial assets to lose. For example, the Upjohn Company dropped its Prostin abortion-pill development program in 1983, primarily due to a pro-life boycott.
But this doesn't mean that the pro-aborts are giving up. They have pressured the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which subsequently urged Congress to pass a national product-liability law which would protect drug companies from liability from injuries caused by drugs like RU-486.
We might ask ourselves: Why is this type of skulduggery needed if the abortion pill is safe especially when the NAS identifies one of the prime targets of the abortion pill teenaged girls as an especially high-risk "subpopulation?"
And so, the pro-aborts will probably market the abortion pill through a very small company with few assets, established specifically so it can collapse with little loss when the inevitable avalanche of damage lawsuits hit (the identical strategy now being used to reintroduce the IUD). And when this first small company folds, another will take its place, and then another ...
Predictably, non-profit pro-death groups from the most morally degenerate developed countries (the United States, England and Sweden) are holding talks with Roussel-Uclaf in an attempt to purchase case lots of the pill at minimum cost so that they can be widely distributed. Such a non-profit group in the United States would attempt to conduct its operations away from the public eye (standard devious pro-abortion practice), so as not to generate too much opposition. This group would have to get the pill approved by the Food and Drug Administration, an unlikely possibility until at least the mid-1990s in view of the current political climate in this country.
The Media Beats the Drum.
Marie Bass, former political director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, and Joanne Howes, former Planned Parenthood chief Washington lobbyist, have assembled a five-fold media strategy to get the media to accept RU-486. They formed an explicitly pro-abortion lobbying and propaganda organization entitled the "Reproductive Health Technology Project," whose purpose was to collect and distribute only favorable information on the abortion pill. They developed and disseminated a high-powered press kit that included sample charts and graphs and photos. Reporter Charles Durran described these as "Those press kits were impressive. In fact, they were a lazy reporter's gold mine. Everything you needed for a really fantastic story or a series of stories was right there at your fingertips. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it."
FIVE-PART BASS & HOWES STRATEGY FOR MEDIA ACCEPTANCE OF RU-486
(1) "Emphasize the possibility that the drug could very well end the whole public abortion struggle by making clinic protests obsolete."
(2) "Emphasize the dearth of other contraceptive options available particularly in comparison with what is available in other parts of the world."
(3) "Emphasize the issues of privacy, ease, safety, choice, and freedom, rather than of abortion and politics."
(4) "Emphasize the possibility of other medical benefits of the drug, such as treatment of breast cancer and Cushings Syndrome."
(5) "Emphasize the threat to the freedom of ongoing medical research that a rejection of the drug might bring."
Reference. This strategy is described in George Grant. "Media Bias and Abortion." Legacy, October 1991, page 1. Newsletter of Legacy Communications, Post Office Box 680365, Franklin, Tennessee 37068.
This set of instructions to the media apparently worked very well. A survey of more than two hundred magazine and newspaper articles on RU-486 during the time period 1989-1990 showed that only 9 percent mentioned any of the pill's numerous and serious complications or side effects; 8 percent quoted any pro-life experts or sources; and a full 96 percent cast the pill in a very favorable lights.
Bass said that "Press coverage really is good, if you think about it sometimes I worry that it's almost too good."[20]
'Prestigious' Awards.
Another tactic used by the pro-aborts to advance a cause is to confer upon each other 'prestigious' awards. This deception looks good to the public eye until examined closely.
In September of 1989, Baulieu was named one of six recipients of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, which the September 28, 1989 New York Times labeled "one of the most prestigious" medical awards in existence.[21]
The real reason this award was made was soon revealed: Deeda Blair, a Lasker Foundation vice president, said in the November 1989 issue of Vanity Fair, "That's the purpose of giving awards: to call attention to an advance."
The Devil and his slaves never rest, so pro-lifers must remain eternally and relentlessly vigilant.
Birth Control = Abortion?
Planned Parenthood trotted out yet another of their doctored public opinion polls which 'showed' that 59 percent of adults in the United States approve of RU-486. Predictably, in keeping with PP's standard deceptive tactics, it conveniently 'forgot' to mention in their poll how RU-486 works. PP merely described it as a safe, new type of birth control pill.
The final result of all of this pro-abortion deviousness, of course, will be that women will be genuinely damaged by the abortion pill because they think it is merely a safe contraceptive. Then, they will be left out in the cold because they will be unable to recover actual or punitive damages.
This decisively demonstrates just how much these companies (and the pro-aborts) really care about women.
RU-486's Uses.
There is no question that a market for the pill exists in the United States. In fact, a large quantity of RU-486 could be used in school-based sex clinics. In the December 22, 1986 edition of the Boston Globe, Dr. Allen Rosenfield, chairman of Planned Parenthood's board of directors, exulted that "RU-486 is a major step forward for teenagers ... If girls who suspect they are pregnant could come to a clinic for a pill when their period is late, they would probably show up a lot earlier than they do now. Most current restrictions, such as parental notification laws, would be unenforceable."[22]
This quote shows that your school-aged daughters are the most accessible and obvious targets for these killing pills. Teenagers are easily intimidated by medical authority and will be easy prey for the sex clinic strategists, who have already stated that they intend to ignore parental consent or notification laws.
The Black Market.
The FDA Roadblock.
Observers on both sides of the abortion issue agree that it could be years before RU-486 or other abortion pills are commercially available in the United States. This is because any drug manufacturer would have to pass the stringent standards of the United States Food and Drug Administration standards that are much stricter than those in France or China. Additionally, most companies don't want to spend the $50 million to $100 million required to test and market a major new drug, without first knowing that FDA approval is certain.[23]
The drug manufacturers clearly recognize the potential dangers of the RU-486 pill. If the drug does enter the market here, it will probably be sold by a very small company with small assets that could be sacrificed without much harm to the unscrupulous sponsors, much in the same manner as the proposed reintroduction of the IUD. Such an arrangement would guarantee that women damaged by the abortion pill could never recover even their actual damages.
Individual Efforts.
Even now, American women who want to kill their own children are contacting French doctors through their own physicians to get the drug. It is certain that many women will travel from France to the United States with the drug, since only 10 percent of all illegal drugs in small doses are detected by immigration officials. As pro-abortion U.S. Representative Nancy Johnson (R.-Conn.) recently said, "If you can smuggle in cocaine, there is absolutely no way that women in America are not going to get those drugs, legally or illegally."[24]
However, few women can afford to travel to France just to pick up a killing pill, so it is expected that a thriving black market will spring up. If RU-486 or an analog is produced privately, it would become simply an alternative type of back-alley abortion. Even Dr. Baulieu admits that "A black market would be disastrous."[9]
Individual Dangers.
Due to its inherent limitations, it hardly matters whether the abortion pill is legal or illegal in this country; unless women individually stockpile the pill ahead of time, they will be hard-pressed to use it in a proper manner. To begin with, most women don't even know they are pregnant until they are three or four weeks into their pregnancy. Most women would not even know where to look for RU-486 pills unless they were hard-core anti-life activists or had other arcane connections.
Assuming they successfully overcome all obstacles and finally get their hands on the pills, most pregnant women will be long past the recommended usage time of seven weeks. If these women get black market pills, they will ingest them past their effective deadline of seven weeks without the accompanying prostaglandins, and without the proper medical supervision recommended by the pill's manufacturer. The result will almost certainly be an 'effectiveness' rate of less than 50 percent.
Finally, the shelf life of RU-486 and other drugs, because of the active hormones they contain, will be relatively short — approximately one year. The abortion pill's effectiveness drops sharply after its shelf life expires.
This means that those women who do not successfully kill their babies will have to make the long and lonely trek to the abortion mill after all. If they have a change of heart and decide to keep their babies, there is no way of telling what damage or deformities will have been wrought upon their babies during the attempted killing.
Play it Yet Again, Sam.
Only one thing is certain in the abortion pill debate: if there is a black market, there are sure to be lurid headlines about women dying from the illegal use of RU-486, and there will just as certainly be the same shrill calls for legalization of the death pill that there were for abortion in the first place.
The drug might be approved for use in the United States for such purposes as relaxing the birth canal for labor, or for the treatment of some forms of breast cancer and endometriosis, which is the third-leading cause of infertility among women in the United States. This means that doctors, if they have the drug, will be able to prescribe it for any reason they desire including abortions. This is why the National Right to Life Committee wants to keep the drug out of the country entirely they are intimately familiar with the abortionist's utter lack of ethics.
Is This the End for the Pro-Life Movement?
The abortion pill's chemical composition is rather simple, and therefore would be relatively easy for a well-equipped private laboratory to reproduce. Free of quality control, these private labs may churn out pills of dubious quality that may have even more profound side effects upon women than RU-486 and this is bound to happen whether or not the United States legalizes the abortion pill.
Therefore, within a few years, pro-lifers will be fighting the wide distribution of some form of abortion pill, whether or not the pill is legalized.
Faye Wattleton, former director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, once again publicly flaunted her profound ignorance of the pro-life movement and its philosophy as she said "The right-to-lifers are fighting the last gasp. If these drugs get to the market, it is really all over."
Wattleton is wrong, of course. Pro-life activists will continue to fight for the lives of the preborn. Every type of death pill is so dangerous that they all require at least four doctor-supervised visits. Our current abortion mills will simply 're-tool' in order to administer the pills. Pro-lifers will continue to rescue, picket, and sidewalk counsel at these death camps, and will probably reach even more women, since twice as many visits are required than for a surgical abortion.
And so, the situation (and the players) will remain exactly the same.
This will be especially true if the pill remains illegal for use in this country. Due to the difficulties that women will have in obtaining and using the drug, many will still resort to surgical abortion.
And, of course, the eternal moral battle will continue until the end of time.
References: The Abortion Pill.
[1] Etienne-Emile Baulieu, inventor of the RU-486 abortion pill, quoted in the New York Times Magazine. Described in the American Family Association Journal, May 1989, page 8.
[2] National Abortion Rights Action League "Factsheet" quoted in "From the Horse's Mouth." National Right to Life News, February 12, 1990, page 13.
[3] Garrett Hardin. "The History and Future of Birth Control." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. Autumn 1966.
[4] Joan Batista. "Abortion Pill is No Panacea." Against the Current, July/August 1990, pages 11 to 14.
[5] "RU-486: Major Topic at Conference." WomenWise (newsletter of the New Hampshire Feminist Women's Health Centers), Winter 1986-1987.
[6] Diana Geddes. "French Catholics Take a Beating On Abortion Pill." National Catholic Register, November 13, 1988, page 1.
[7] New York Woman, May 1990.
[8] As described in Dianne Pomon. "RU-486." Voices for the Unborn (Feasterville, Pennsylvania), August 1990, pages 7 and 15.
[9] Quoted in National Catholic Register. "France Orders Subsidies for RU-486 Abortion Pill." April 1, 1990, page 2.
[10] Canadian neurologist Paul Ranalli. "The Appalling Ordeal of Abortion By Pill." Toronto Globe and Mail, August 28, 1992, page A17.
[11] National Abortion Federation. Abortion: Moral Choice and Medical Imperative. "Abortion Practice Advancement, Sixteenth Annual Meeting Workbook, April 13-14, 1992, San Diego, California." Page 133, "Successful Strategies: Managing the Media."
[12] Louise B. Tyrer, M.D., Vice-President of Medical Affairs for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, New York. "Update on RU-486." The American Journal of Gynecologic Health. January/February 1989.
[13] Bernard Nathanson, M.D. "Beyond 'Abortion:' RU-486 and the Needs of the Crisis Constituency." Bernadell Technical Bulletin, November 1990. Pages 1 to 3.
[14] William Regelson, M.D., Roger Loria, Ph.D., and Mohammed Kalimi, Ph.D. Journal of the American Medical Association, August 22 to 29, 1990. Pages 1,026 to 1,027.
[15] Janice Raymond, professor of Women's Studies and Medical Ethics and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Renate Klein, lecturer in Women's Studies at Deakin University, Australia; and Lynette J. Dumble, Senior Research Fellow in the University of Melbourne's Department of Surgery. RU 486: Misconceptions, Myths, and Morals. Institute of Women and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 115 pages, 1991.
[16] Roberta Ulrich. "Scientists Protest FDA Ban on Drug." The Oregonian, November 20, 1990, page A10.
[17] Paulette Likoudis. "RU-486 Another Level of the Same Barbarism." The Wanderer, June 7, 1990, pages 4 and 8.
[18] As described in Richard Glasow, Ph.D. "Roussel-Uclaf Seeking U.S. Connection." National Right to Life News, October 31, 1990, pages 1 and 13.
[19] National Catholic Register, July 10, 1989, page 8.
[20] George Grant. "Media Bias and Abortion." Legacy, October 1991, page 1. Newsletter of Legacy Communications, Post Office Box 680365, Franklin, Tennessee 37068.
[21] Richard D. Glasow, Ph.D. "Pro-Aborts Work Overtime to Break RU-486 'Quarantine.'" National Right to Life News, November 30, 1989, pages 6 and 11.
[22] Richard Glasow, Ph.D. "SBCs and Pro-Abortion "Sex Education."" National Right to Life News, October 15, 1987, page 4.
[23] Todd Ackerman. "Abortion Pill Banned Here; Black Market Seems Likely." National Catholic Register, December 18, 1988, page 1. [24] Peggy Simpson. "The Gathering Storm: Politics." Ms. Magazine, April 1989, page 89.
Further Reading: The Abortion Pill.
American Life League. "RU-486, the Human Pesticide."
Informational booklet sold by ALL; the most comprehensive reference to the various aspects of the abortion pill, excellent for informing professionals, clergymen, and interested pro-lifers about RU-486. Write to ALL, Post Office Box 1350, Stafford, Virginia 22554.
American Society of Law & Medicine. Antiprogestin Drugs: Ethical, Legal and Medical Issues.
Proceedings from the conference at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia, December 6-7, 1991. 1992, 589 pages. Order from the American Society of Law & Medicine, 765 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215. A series of fifty papers on all aspects of use and impacts of the abortion pill RU-486 and the insertable abortifacient NORPLANT. The ethics and implementation of these drugs and of early abortion and contraception in developing nations is also covered in detail by some of the world's leading pro-abortion strategists.
Etienne-Emile Baulieu and Sheldon J. Segal (editors). The Antiprogestin Steroid RU-486 and Human Fertility Control.
New York: Plenum Press, 1986. 353 pages. This book contains the full reports of major clinical tests of RU-486 on rats, monkeys, and women in the form of papers presented at the Worldwide Conference on RU-486 at Bellagio, Italy, in 1984.
Gale Research. Drugs Available Abroad.
Information on about 1,000 significant drugs available all over the world. Information on each drug includes name, generic name, brand names and manufacturers, drug purposes and modes of action, form in which delivered (i.e., IV or tablet, etc.), dosage, precautions and warnings, contraindications if any, adverse effects, status in the United States, and U.S. equivalents. 600 pages, updated and published annually by Gale Research, Inc., 835 Penobscot Building, Detroit, Michigan 48226-4094, telephone: (313) 961-2242. Toll-free telephone number: 1-800-877-GALE.
Richard D. Glasow, Ph.D., and John C. Willke, M.D. "Omen of the Future?: The Abortion Pill RU-486."
55 pages. A superb and highly-detailed explanation of the origins, effects, and controversy surrounding the most well-known abortion pill. Order from the National Right to Life Committee Educational Trust Fund, 419 7th Street N.W., Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20004. The first copy is free, and orders of from 2 to 500 cost from 70 to 75 cents each, plus postage, depending upon quantity.
George Grant. The Quick and the Dead: RU-486 and the New Chemical Warfare Against Your Family.
Crossway Books, 1300 Crescent Street, Wheaton, Illinois 60187. 1991, 153 pages. This book addresses what RU-486 really is, how it works, its health complications, and the implications of the debate surrounding the abortion pill. The book also tells the stories of several women who have taken the pill.
Human Life International. Project Abortifacients.
June 1991, 23 pages. This summary report, updated periodically by Human Life International, lists major quotes and many major studies on the abortifacient mode of action and side effects of the most common abortifacients: The birth control pill, the intra-uterine device (IUD), NORPLANT, RU-486, and Depo-Provera. Available from Human Life International, 7845-E Airpark Road, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20879.
Lawrence Lader. RU 486: The Pill That Could End the Abortion Wars and Why American Women Don't Have It.
Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading, Massachusetts. 1991, 165 pages. This is a book that will be useful to pro-life activists in their fight against the abortion pill once it is widespread in the United States. Lader, 'king of the abortion propagandists,' uses his talents here to lambaste pro-lifers, allege that the pill is valuable for other medical uses, and paints an expectedly slanted picture of the history behind the pill.
Janice Raymond, professor of Women's Studies and Medical Ethics and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Renate Klein, lecturer in Women's Studies at Deakin University, Australia; and Lynette J. Dumble, Senior Research Fellow in the University of Melbourne's Department of Surgery. RU 486: Misconceptions, Myths, and Morals.
Institute of Women and Technology, c/o Room 3-405, Department of Urban Studies & Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. 115 pages, 1991, 10.95. Three self-described feminist professors extensively document the dangers of RU-486 and the claims of efficacy against various diseases, and conclude that "These claims have an all-too-wondrous ring of promise subsequently turned peril." Their book also describes how the abortion pill increases instead of decreases physician control and how it is dumped on Third World women.
United States Government, Food and Drug Administration. Requirements of Laws and Regulations Enforced by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
This publication is intended to be a cross reference to the major requirements of laws and regulations administered by the FDA. This book could come in handy for pro-lifers trying to track the distribution of new IUDs, NORPLANT, and the resurgence of the use of Depo-Provera by poor women. Serial Number 017-012-00343-5, 1989, 85 pages. Order by mail from Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, or by telephone from (202) 783-3238.
© American Life League BBS - 1-703-659-7111
This is a chapter of the Pro-Life Activist's Encyclopedia published by American Life League.
