So far, however, few have jumped at the chance to combine the drugs for abortion for fear of malpractice suits or political reprisals. Anti-abortion groups are furious about the new medical abortion technique, which can't be tracked, protested or blocked because of the medications' other widespread uses. We feel that it's dangerous and irresponsible to use a chemotherapy drug to induce abortion, and we don't feel that women should be treated as guinea pigs. But even though the group can't protest a drug that's already approved, the NRLC is not giving up. We don't know the long-term effects this drug will have on the reproductive system or on future children.
Physicians deny that such dangers exist.
But anti-abortion groups consider the new technique no less horrific than surgical abortion. According to Echevarria, the technique should be outlawed because abortion is wrong. But pro-choice organizations say they will continue to administer methotrexate until RU486 is legal. The availability of the drug ends there. And since RU486 costs so little, drug companies are even less willing to take on the political hostility, given that they're not going to make a lot of money.