From: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt)
Subject: Re: RU486, the Pill, & "pregnancy"
Reply-To: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com
Organization: Abiogenesis 4 Less
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 21:10:25 GMT

kauff@neit.cgd.ucar.edu (Brian Kauffman) writes:
# Today on NPR & in a wire service newspaper article were stories
# (sorry, I don't have a transcript, corrections welcome)

The following is copied without permission from _The_San_Francisco_
_Chronicle_, 08 Oct 92, page A3 (the New York Times is credited in the
byline): 

	   In a discovery that could reshape the debate
	over the French abortion pill, RU-486, researchers
	have found that it can enable women to avoid
	abortions by serving as a highly effective
	morning-after pill.    
	   In a new study, Dr. Anna Glasier and her
	colleagues at the University of Edinburgh in
	Scotland gave either RU-486 or high doses of birth
	control pills to 800 women who requested emergency
	help.
	   Both treatments prevented pregnancy in women
	who had had unprotected sexual intercourse in the
	preceding 72 hours, but RU-486 caused far less
	vomiting.
	   Four of the the 398 women in the study who took
	the birth control pills became pregnant while none
	who took RU-486 became pregnant.
	   The investigators said that if no treatment had
	been given, they would have expect 17 pregnancies
	in each group.  The study is being reported today
	in The New England Journal of Medicine.
	   Family planning experts hailed the study
	because it not only documented the effectiveness
	of high doeses of birth control pills in
	preventing pregnancy, but it also showed that
	RU-486 could be even better.
	   Some said they hoped that the new use for
	RU-486, which is not available in the United
	States, would shift the debate over the drug away
	from the contentious issue of abortion.
	   For these reasons, ``It's an immensely
	important study,'' said Dr. Michael Policar, vice
	president for medical affairs at the Planned
	Parenthood of America.
	   But opponents of abortion said that
	morning-after pills were, in fact, the moral
	equivalent of abortions.  Saying otherwise ``is
	more of the verbal gymnastics that pro-abortion
	advocates use so routinely,'' said Dr. Richard
	Glasgow, the education director of the National
	Right to Life Committee.
	   The use of birth control pills as a
	morning-after drug has not been submitted to the
	Food and Drug Administration for review, so the
	pills cannot be advertised as having this effect.
	   However, since they have been approved for
	other purposes, doctors are free to prescribe them
	as a morning-after pill.  Similarly, if RU-486
	were to be approved as a morning-after pill,
	doctors would be able to use it in abortions.
	   Dr. David Grimes of the University of Southern
	California School of Medicine said the new study
	showed the advantage of using RU-486 to prevent
	pregnancy.
	   With birth-control pills, he said, ``a
	substantial proportion of women will have bad
	nausea and vomiting,'' adding, ``It's a punishing
	regimen.  Why punish women who are alread in a
	time of difficulty?''
	   But because the study used RU-486, it is apt to
	be swept into the rancorous debate over abortion.
	   Many medical experts and women who favor the
	availability of abortion want RU-486 to be
	marketed in this country because it provides an
	alternative to surgical abortions early in
	pregnancy.  Many opponents of abortion just as
	fervently want the drug kept out of the United
	States.
	   It is the first study to document a use for
	RU-486, other than inducing abortion at up to
	nineweeks of pregnancy, that could affect large
	numbers of people.
	   For that reason, Grimes said, ``I think this
	study will irrevocably change the political
	landscape of this drug in America.  Now we can
	stop our obsessive focus on RU-486 as an
	abortifacient.''
	   But some abortion opponents disagree that the
	morning-after method, which prevents a fertilized
	egg from implanting itself in the uterus, is any
	different from an abortion, which dislodges a
	fertilized egg that is already implanted.

-- 
J H Woodyatt (a.k.a. Dr. Strychnine)
Space Systems/Loral

``Men who have no time to read should devote their time to reading
books of quotations.''
                                              -- Winston Churchill