The Real War on Women: Abortion Drug RU 486 Injures Thousands

by Mailee Smith
5/17/12

On Monday, a state trial court judge overturned an Oklahoma law intended to ensure the safe use of abortion-inducing drugs, such as RU-486. The law, enacted in 2011 and based upon an AUL model, simply required that abortion providers administer the drugs in the manner approved by the FDA.

The state’s interest in enacting such a law was clear: Since RU-486 was approved in 2000, thousands of women have faced complications, many life-threatening. Both the FDA and the drug manufacturer have acknowledged the substantial risk of complications following use. Fourteen women have died. Eight of those women died of a severe bacterial infection that would not otherwise harm healthy women. All eight of those women were instructed to use the drugs in a manner that directly contravened the approved FDA protocol.

On the other hand, no women have died from bacterial infection after using RU-486 in the manner approved by the FDA.

With that in mind, Oklahoma adopted a law aimed at ensuring that RU-486 and other abortion-inducing drugs are administered only in the way approved by the FDA. Rather than allowing providers to hand out dangerous drugs and send women home to self-administer away from physician oversight and beyond the gestational limit approved by the FDA, the law required that physicians examine women before administering the drugs and instructed that the drugs be administered in a clinical setting within the gestational limit approved by the FDA. the rest