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(The following article was excerpted from National Right to Life News, May
2002)
Ads for the French abortion pill RU-486 give no hints that it can possibly
be harmful to females who use it. RU-486, (also known as
mifepristone or Mifeprix) has now been linked to the deaths of at least
two women who had used the abortion technique. A third woman, only
21 years old, had a heart attack only 3 days after taking RU-486 and a
second drug, misoprostol. RU-486 impedes the unborn child's
development, while misoprostol causes powerful uterine contractions to
expel the dying or dead child.
The women who died had ectopic pregnancies, which means that the embryo
had implanted itself in the Fallopian tube instead of the uterus.
Both women had their tubes rupture after taking the abortion drugs and one
of these women hemorrhaged so badly that she bled to death. The
maker of the drug has now cautioned abortion doctors not to use the drugs
in association with ectopic pregnancies.
Before giving RU-486 approval in the last year of the Clinton presidency,
the FDA had planned to require ultrasounds of women before the abortion
drugs were administered. However, the drug manufacturer and abortion
sympathizers in the medical establishment talked the FDA out of the
ultrasound requirement, perhaps because it would tend to reduce the use of
the drugs. An ultrasound would have revealed the location of the
embryos in the tubes, thus confirming that the drug use might cause tubal
rupture.
What is not well known is that the combination RU-486/ misoprostol causes
extended and extensive bleeding. Average women lose 4 times as much
blood in a chemical drug abortion than in a curettage abortion.
Bleeding for 10-12 days is normal and some women bleed for a month!
Prior to the use of misoprostol (which is a drug type known as a
prostaglandin), two other types of prostaglandins were used to stimulate
muscle contractions -- gemeprost and sulprostone. However, their use
was abandoned after four women suffered heart attacks and died.
Since heart muscle has some of the properties of smooth muscle as does the
uterus, it was postulated that the earlier prostaglandins had possibly
caused the heart attacks. Doctors, therefore, turned to (the safer?)
misoprostol. It was the latter drug that caused the heart attack in
the 21 year old women mentioned earlier. Thus, even misoprostol can
apparently cause cardiac difficulties.
Of course, much of this information is not known by women who use the
abortion drugs. Thus, they may be taking their lives in their hands
if they use the drugs and are prone to hemorrhage or cardiac problems.
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