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Medication Abortion
The FDA-approved drug mifepristone has been used in the U.S. since 2000.
The “abortion pill”—commonly known as RU-486 and marketed as Mifeprex—has been available in the U.S. since November 2000. Other countries have used Mifeprex since 1981. More than two million European women have safely used the drug. Since FDA approval, more than 500,000 American women have successfully used Mifeprex to terminate early pregnancies.1
Mifeprex is safer than Tylenol, aspirin and Viagra.
The safety of Mifeprex is well established. Mifeprex is safer than Tylenol, aspirin, and Viagra. Common medications like Tylenol cause approximately 150 deaths annually from accidental overdose. The number of deaths that result from the use of aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is estimated to be in the thousands. There have been approximately five deaths for every 100,000 Viagra prescriptions. Mifeprex carries one-fifth of that risk. Pregnancy-related deaths occur at a rate of 13 deaths for every 100,000 live births—medication abortion carries less than one-tenth of that risk.2 These numbers prove that the contention that Mifeprex is unsafe is false and illegitimate.
Access to Mifeprex increases reproductive health choices—especially for women who live in areas with no surgical abortion providers.
Less than two years after the FDA approved Mifeprex, a majority of abortion providers offered it. Europe’s experience with Mifeprex indicates that approval of the drug resulted in a gradual proliferation of new providers.
The availability of Mifeprex does not increase abortion.
The number of abortions in the U.S. has declined for over two decades and has continued to decline since Mifeprex was approved.3 Based on post-1981 European data, it is believed that the introduction of Mifeprex will not noticeably increase the U.S. abortion rate—but it may increase the proportion of abortions that take place very early in pregnancy.
Right-wing, anti-choice organizations have launched a variety of attacks that attempt to limit or eliminate access to Mifeprex.
- Under the faulty premise that Mifeprex is unsafe, anti-choice advocates are attempting to ban Mifeprex altogether—ostensibly to protect the health and safety of women who seek abortions. This restriction is so lacking in medical, scientific, or moral justification that it is in violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of due process. While some state legislators have expressed an aversion to the “convenience” of taking a pill, this aversion is not a sufficient basis for legislation. Laws with the express purpose of making abortion more difficult to obtain or endure are in violation of the Constitution because they place an undue burden on the right to choose abortion. A state ban or restriction on the distribution of an FDA-approved drug might also be in violation of the Constitution because it unduly interferes with interstate commerce.
- Relying on false information about the safety of Mifeprex, anti-choice advocates attempt to prevent increased access to abortion by placing unwarranted restrictions on which physicians may prescribe the drug. Some legislation prevents a physician from prescribing Mifeprex unless he or she currently provides surgical abortion and has privileges at a nearby hospital. This effectively bans Mifeprex in rural areas where no physician meets these requirements.
- The application of current regulations of surgical abortion could effectively ban the use of Mifeprex altogether. For example, laws that require pathological examination of fetal tissue after a medication abortion would be difficult to comply with since early medication abortion involves the expulsion of the embryo at home.
Attacks on medication abortion prevent research on uses of Mifeprex to treat other illnesses.
Mifeprex is believed to have tremendous potential as a treatment for a number of illnesses such as brain cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, and depression. However, right-wing, anti-choice politics has successfully blocked potentially life-saving research—similar to attacks on stem cell research.4
Endnotes
- Beth Jordan, MD, “Letter to the Community Affairs Committee, Department of the Senate, Australia,” Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, January 16, 2006.
- Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, “Mifepristone Safety Overview,” October 2005.
- Heather Boonstra, “Mifepristone in the United States: Status and Future,” The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, August 2002.
- “Letter to the Community Affairs Committee.”
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