In a long-awaited decision, the Food and Drug Administration recently approved mifepristone, more commonly known as RU-486 or the “French abortion pill.”
This victory is as significant to women as Roe vs. Wade and the advent of the birth control pill because it will give women greater control of their reproductive lives.
Women in Europe have used mifepristone safely and effectively for more than a decade. In the United States, Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties participated in the clinical trials of mifepristone, where we found that the drug was 95 percent effective in terminating pregnancy. The other 5 percent of the time, women had to have a simple surgical abortion.
In Europe, access to mifepristone has neither increased nor decreased the rate of abortion. Though they have the option of medical abortion, most European women still choose surgical abortion, and we suspect this will be the case in the United States, too. Though most women will not choose to use mifepristone, it is vitally important that the choice is there for women to make.
Eighty-three percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider. If a woman who lives in one of these counties needs to terminate a pregnancy, she must travel great distances and incur expenses that a woman who lives in a metropolitan area would not. Though the OB/GYNs in rural areas may not provide surgical abortion, we believe that as many as half of them will be willing to administer mifepristone. The availability of this drug will allow many women who live in rural areas to access early abortion services that were previously unavailable to them.
It’s no wonder the number of abortion providers in the United States is so scarce. The National Abortion Federation has documented more than 2,000 incidents of violence against abortion providers.
Doctors and clinic staff have been shot and killed. Patients have been stalked and harassed. No one can blame physicians for wanting to keep themselves and their families safe from the violence perpetrated by those who claim to value life.
Mifepristone will allow women more privacy than surgical abortion. Though the drug is administered in a clinical setting, the abortion itself likely takes place when the woman is at home. And because more family doctors and OB/GYNs will provide mifepristone, women can avoid the protesters at abortion clinics , it will be difficult for anti-abortion hardliners to keep track of every single doctor who offers mifepristone.
While Planned Parenthood lauds the FDA approval of mifepristone, we will continue to work to prevent the need for abortion through education, family planning services and community outreach. Each year, our family planning services avert 500,000 unplanned pregnancies, half of which would have ended in abortion.
It is essential that we work to protect a woman’s right to choose. But it is equally important that we work to create a future where every child is loved and wanted.
Salo is the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of San Diego & Riverside Counties.
