Late last year, the media heralded the arrival of a newly-discovered chemical abortion pill, and followed up with further news that the pill could also be used as a convenient, once-a-month method of birth control.

In fact, the RU 486 pill has been public knowledge since early last year when American pro-life newspapers, ALL About Issues and National Right to Life News, published lengthy articles on it. The Interim also reported briefly on the pill in April, 1986.

RU 486, also known as Mifepristone, is a synthetic anti-progesterone steroid. It blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, which is necessary to maintain the lining of the uterus. Without progesterone, the uterus sheds its lining, as it does normally each month in women who are not pregnant.

Roussel-Uclaf, the Paris-based company which patented the drug, claims that trials prove it 85 per cent effective in inducing a menstrual period – and, as a result, eliminating any fertilized egg – if taken within 10 days of a missed menstrual period.

The European drug company’s research and development has been supported financially by American population foundations and also U.S. government grants. Inventor Etienne-Emile Baulieu credits Planned Parenthood as supplying the inspiration for his invention.

According to ALL About Issues (March, 1986), U.S. government NIH grants funded at least three studies using animals, and one using women, to test the drug. Among the foundations supporting research are the Ford, Rockefeller and Mellon Foundations, the G. Hecht Fund and the Population Council.

Baulieu dedicated his 1985 book on RU 486 to “the spirit that inspired Margaret Sanger, Katherine McCormick and Mary Lasker, and to the memory of Gregory Pincus.”

ALL About Issues explains the significance of these names: “Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger had solicited and achieved Katherine McCormick’s monetary support of Gregory Pincus and Dr. John Rock to develop the original oral contraceptive. Mary Lasker and her husband, the late Albert Lasker, an advertising magnate, have long contributed to Planned Parenthood and population control causes.”

Although Roussel-Uclaf is now claiming an 85 per cent effectiveness rate, earlier trial results showed the pill to be less effective. In October, 1984, researchers reported that RU 486 had been given to 130 women seeking abortion for four-to ten-week pregnancies. For pregnancies of four-to seven-weeks’ gestation, complete abortion was obtained in 70 per cent, incomplete abortion in 20 per cent, and no effect in ten per cent. For eight- to ten-week pregnancies, the results were 50 per cent complete abortion, 35 per cent incomplete abortion and 15 per cent no effect.

In cases where “incomplete” abortions resulted, the women underwent surgical abortions to remove their unwanted children. Baulieu has suggested that combining RU 486 with prostaglandin (a drug that stimulates labour) would solve the problem of such “incomplete” results.

RU 486 is said to be “relatively safe,”  although reports warn that it should be administered under medical supervision, since the bleeding it induces should be monitored. Induced heavy bleeding is considered to be a minor nuisance, as are other side effects of strong uterine contractions, nausea and fatigue.

Predictably enough, pro-abortion groups hail RU 486 as a welcome breakthrough. Norma Scarborough, head of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, told Maclean’s “It makes abortion a medical procedure rather than a surgical one, and it makes it private instead of public. A woman can take this and not have to deal with whether one is having an abortion – it just brings on a menstrual period. So it may remove the emotionally-charged part of the problem.”    

Equally predictably, abortion champions have already found a “Roman Catholic theologian” to bless the drug. Former priest Daniel Maguire (one of the signers of the infamous New York Times ad arguing that there is a valid Catholic position for abortion) has suggested that the theory of “delayed ensoulment” – this theory has never been official Catholic teaching – makes the early abortion pill acceptable to Catholics.

Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, is an outspoken critic of this new abortion method. “ALL has explained on many occasions that there is no basic difference between this new pill and the pills and IUDs which are on the market now. Abortion occurs when the fertilized ovum cannot implant itself on the womb’s wall. This sort of abortion has been occurring within wombs-turned-to-tombs for so many years that the public is now able to be very apathetic about the situation. Thus, and this is our deepest concern, this new pill is simply accepted without question.”

“The leaders of the pro-life movement have known since 1968 that the birth control pill as we know it today and the IUD abort children,” she continued. “Though the primary action of the birth control pill may not be abortion, the secondary action is!  And, because leadership has been silent in the past on this subject, the time has come to break the silence, clarify true contraception versus killing agents in pills and IUDs, and thus work with members nationwide to stop RU 486 before it ever has a chance to wreak its havoc in the wombs of women across our land and throughout the world.”

Latest media reports call the drug a “once a month birth control pill,” citing a report from the New England Journal of Medicine, which once again appears to ignore the fact that if the woman taking the pill is already pregnant, it is an abortifacient.

Researchers have found that a single dose of RU 486 (in a trial involving eight women) “consistently forced menstruation” with no side effects. They say it could replace the daily birth control pill (presumably because it eliminates the hassle of having to take a pill once a day), or the IUD “which can cause infertility” (a fact which up to now has been glossed over) or barrier contraceptives “which are not always reliable.”

As pro-abortion forces start to promote public awareness of this new pill, we can expect the terminology to change. First reports boldly called it an abortion pill, but U.S. supporters have already preferred to call it a “post-ovulatory contraceptive” or “medical menstrual regulator” for “fertility control.”  Inventor Baulieu describes it as “contragestation” because it stops implantation and continuing gestation of the child and because he does not like the term abortion.

We can also expect to see an interesting flip in rhetoric from pro-abortion forces, concerning the hazards of surgical abortion. Physical and emotional effects of induced abortion have been routinely brushed aside, or ignored, for many years but are now being acknowledged to give added approval to the pill. Norma Scarborough acknowledged the “emotionally-charged part of the problem” in her interview with Maclean’s quoted above.

Writing in The Wanderer, Joseph Stanton M.D. points out that the New England Journal of Medicine, in reporting human trials of the abortion pill, has also changed its tune.

“Very interestingly, the last sentence in the paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, includes the following,” Dr. Stanton writes, “…RU 486 offers a reasonable alternative to surgical abortion, which carries the risks of anesthesia, surgical complications, infertility, and psychological sequelae” (emphasis added). For 14 years, the American populace has been told that ‘surgical abortion is a medical procedure, ‘safe’ ‘easy,’ ‘without significant complications.’ How often have we not heard preached from impeccable medical sources that ‘abortion is safer than having a baby?’  Those who have raised caution or caveat have been imperiously swept aside by the purveyors of abortion.”

Roussel-Uclaf expects to market RU 486 in France by the middle of this year, and in the Netherlands and Scandinavia by the end of the year. The U.S. market is less accessible, an executive of the company told Maclean’s, because public sentiment “is definitely against abortions right now.”  He did not add that drug companies in the U.S. are shying away from any new products which could cost them money in consumer lawsuits.

In Canada, the company faces “the problem of whether this would be legal under Canadian abortion laws.”  Health and Welfare Canada says that testing for safety “could take several years.”  However, Maclean’s reporters pointed out that “if the new drug proves popular in Europe, there may soon be considerable pressure in North America to speed up the clearance procedures.”