8mm
Posted on 01/23/2008 9:49:04 AM PST by Between the Lines
Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision, a pill that has largely faded from the rancorous public debate over abortion has slowly and quietly begun to transform the experience of ending a pregnancy in the United States.
The French abortion pill RU-486, on the market since 2000, has become an increasingly common alternative, making abortion less clinical and more private. At a time when the overall number of abortions has been steadily declining, RU-486-induced abortions have been rising by 22 percent a year and now account for 14 percent of the total -- and more than one in five early abortions performed by the ninth week of pregnancy.
The pill, often called "miffy" after its chemical name mifepristone and brand name Mifeprex, also has helped slow the decline in abortion providers, as more physicians who previously did not perform the procedure discreetly start to prescribe the pill.
"The impact and the promise is huge," said Beth Jordan, medical director of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. "It's going a long way towards normalizing abortion."
When the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone in 2000, some predicted it would revolutionize the abortion experience and debate by enabling women to get an abortion from any doctor, neutralizing one of opponents' most potent strategies -- picketing abortion clinics.
"The thinking initially was that this was going to change everything. There was a lot of hype. That didn't pan out," said Carole Joffe, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Davis. "But the impact has been happening gradually as it slowly and steadily is becoming integrated into the medical system."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
About 150,000 of the 1.2 million abortions in the United States in 2006 were done with medication, the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive-health research organization, estimated recently.
More than half of abortion providers now offer the option, a 70 percent increase from the first half of 2001, Guttmacher said.
This article is full of disgusting and troubling statements. I can't fathom the thinking of these people.
"Judi Gilbert, 41, a nurse in Philadelphia, opted for mifepristone in 2005 when she had her second abortion. She had a 3-year-old son and was about to start a new job.
"It was something I could do at home and be with my husband," Gilbert said of taking the pill. "It was a decision we made together alone, and we were able to take care of it this way alone. It was just a much more private affair."
A private affair . . . murder . . . just lovely. Wouldn't want to inconvenience herself when she's starting a new job - as a nurse, no less.
What kind of feminazi newspeak is this!?
Reproductive Health means helping people REPRODUCE, it has nothing to do with murdering babies.
What a selfish and irresponsible b*tch. Is she not aware of the multitude of methods that are out there to AVOID becoming pregnant?
This makes it clear that the abortionists are now pushing this death drug as a preferred method of birth control.
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Here are some of the Victims of RU-486 in the United States:
Holly Patterson, age 18 - San Francisco, CA
Died: September 17, 2003
Hoa Thuy (Vivian) Tran, age 22 - Orange County, CA
Died: December 29, 2003 in Las Vegas
Chanelle Bryant, age 22, Pasadena, CA
Died: January 14, 2004
Oriane Shevin, age 34 – Sherman Oaks, CA
Died: June 14, 2005
It is being sold as plan b instead of an abortion which it really is. The title of the headline is misleading.
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