Article On Ru 486 Essay Research Paper

Article On Ru 486 Essay, Research Paper

Campaign for RU486 &

Contraceptive Research*Picture: Feminist Majority Foundation*

The Medical Uses of Mifepristone

In addition to its use in terminating unwanted pregnancies, MIFEPRISTONE (formerly known as RU-486) also may be effective in treating a range of serious diseases and medical conditions, many of which particularly affect women. Yet American clinical trials for most of these uses have come to a standstill due to anti-abortion politics.

A B O R T I O N & F E R T I L I T Y C O N T R O L

Available to women in many countries (but currently not in the U.S.), mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486) is the first in a new generation of fertility control agents that can terminate an early pregnancy. Mifepristone works by blocking the action of progesterone, which is necessary to sustain a pregnancy.

Mifepristone, taken along with a prostaglandin, has been used by over half a million women worldwide and has found to be safe and effective as an early abortion method during the first nine weeks of a pregnancy.

A woman can take mifepristone as soon as she knows she is pregnant. Mifepristone is administered orally, is non-invasive, requires no anesthesia, and bears less risk of infection. Many women prefer mifepristone because the procedure is more private and allows them greater psychological control in ending a pregnancy. Administered with a single dose of a misoprostol (a prostaglandin given as orally or as a vaginal suppository), mifepristone has been proven to be highly effective in successfully terminating pregnancy.[1]

Studies also show that mifepristone is a safe, effective post-coital contraceptive.[2] [3] Preliminary shows show, as well, that mifepristone can act as both a male and female contraceptive.

[1] Spitz IM, et al. Early pregnancy termination with mifepristone and misoprostol in the United States. New England J of Medicine, 4/30/98.

[2] Baird DT, Dewar M, Glasier A et al. Mifepristone (RU486) compared with high-dose estrogen and progestogen for emergency postcoital contraception. New England J of Medicine, 10/8/92.

[3] Bygdeman M, Danielsson KG, et al. Contraceptive use of antiprogestin. European J of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care, 6/99.

many women report feeling “less guilty” about medical abortion. some even say it feels more like bringing on a late period or taking the morning-after pill than having an abortion.

————————————————————————

VOICE: AUG 30, 2000

Western medicine’s first approved nonsurgical abortion method, RU-486.which is also known as mifepristone.is in many ways a successor to the teas and tinctures women have used for centuries. (For a look at an underground abortion drug, see “The Star Pill.”) When taken with misoprostol, an ulcer medication that’s already approved and available in the United States, RU-486 blocks the hormone that gets the body ready for pregnancy; within hours after a woman takes the two pills (one 24 hours after the other), the lining of the uterus breaks down and the pregnancy ends. But, because it works from the very earliest stages into the seventh week, many see RU-486 as a method that can prevent pregnancy from beginning.a distinction that could prove huge. For women who have taken it, RU-486 often sidesteps the stigma of having an abortion; a pill, many of them say, feels more natural and less invasive. Most doctors, too, seem to be more willing to prescribe a medication than to perform a surgery, however minor.

That’s certainly been the case in France, where some 25 percent of abortions are now done with RU-486, which is widely available in French doctors’ offices. France, it should be noted, is not some sort of women’s rights mecca, where toilet seats are welded down and tampons are free. The country has its own history of strife over reproductive rights, its own bands of zealots bent on forbidding abortion at all cost.

In fact, a few such abortion opponents were at the helm of Roussel Uclaf, the very company that developed RU-486 back in 1980. (1980!) In late 1989, two years after the safety and efficacy of the drug were established in French clinical trials, these executives.as well as the Roussel’s head of security, who was recruited into the effort because of his strong antiabortion beliefs.tried to overpower their pro-choice colleagues within the company and force Roussel to abandon the drug. The antiabortion faction of the company had already written a press release announcing the decision, when an 11th-hour countercampaign saved the first major abortion breakthrough from oblivion. A petition with more than 2000 signatures and a flurry of press coverage quashed the anti-RU-486 rebellion. Despite political opposition, the French minister of health declared RU-486 “the moral property of women.” By April of 1990, the drug was on the French market.

1999: Mifepristone is approved in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, and Israel. The Population Council and Danco, a group of investors formed to market mifepristone, submit the requested information to the FDA. Approval is widely expected by early 2000.

2000: February.The FDA issues another approvable letter for the use of mifepristone in early abortions, but says more inform

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать