7TH U.S. Woman Dies From Drug-Based Abortion, FDA Meeting Reveals

Maternal Death 

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7TH U.S. WOMAN DIES FROM DRUG-BASED ABORTION, FDA MEETING REVEALS. During a meeting of scientists and federal officials about the dangerous abortion drug RU 486 and how it has been responsible for killing six women, a Centers for Disease Control official revealed a seventh woman has died from a drug-based abortion.

The seventh woman died from a drug-induced abortion but did not use the first part of the two-part RU 486 abortion drug. Clifford McDonald, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control, reported on the latest death and told the FDA officials and scientists at the meeting that the woman in question was given the drug misoprostol.

That's the second part of the RU 486 abortion drug. The first, mifepristone, deprives the developing unborn child of the nutrition she needs to survive and the second, misoprostol, is a prostaglandin that is given to induce contractions and expel the body of the dead baby.

Searle, the maker of the drug, also known as Cytotec, has repeatedly issued letters to doctors and warnings that it should not be used to produce abortions. The drug is intended to treat ulcers but abortion practitioners engage in what is known as "off-label" use because it has been found to be relatively effective in producing contractions. McDonald said the woman in question used the drug vaginally, which has been a concern in the deaths of five of the recent RU 486 abortion drug deaths.

The FDA has only approved using misoprostol orally, but abortion business Planned Parenthood had been advising women to use it vaginally until the announcement last month that another woman had died from developing a lethal bacterial infection in her vagina brought on by the aboriton pill. According to a New York Times report, the seventh woman who died from a drug-induced abortion was also given a laminaria, a drug made from sea algae that is sometimes used to dilate the cervix during a surgical abortion.

The Times reported that McDonald told the meeting the two most recent women who died, suffered from Clostridium perfringens infections while the four California women who died had Clostridium sordellii infections. McDonald said the latest death occured in a Midwestern state.

The first victim of RU 486 was a Tennessee woman who died after using the abortion drug. She had an undetected ectopic pregnancy, and the drug is not supposed to be used in such situations. Following her death, four California women died from using the abortion drug and the FDA announced last month that a Colorado woman had died as well. Internationally, women have died in Canada, Sweden and France and two women died after using the abortion drug in England. In total, now, seven American women have died from the abortion drug and twelve had died worldwide. [14May06, Atlanta, LifeNews.com]

FDA TOLD ABORTION DRUG MAY SUPPRESS IMMUNE SYSTEM, CAUSE DEATHS. While the joint FDA-CDC meeting got somewhat off topic in its discussion of the deaths of 5 women in the last 3 years form the RU 486 abortion drug, some scientists told the federal agencies they think the abortion drug is suppressing women's immune systems -- creating an environment where a normally nonlethal bacteria causes death.

The abortion drug has already been linked to the bacteria Clostridium sorreli and one researcher pointed to immune system problems as the reason for the abortion deaths. Dr. Ralph Miech, an associate professor of pharmacology at Brown University, has already done some of the most comprehensive research on the problem.

As a panelist at the meeting, he told officials the abortion drug suppresses the immune system and increases the possibility for a lethal infection. Dr. Randall O'Bannon [dir, research, NRLC] said that suggestions that the presence of the bacteria in a woman's vaginal tract is a cause of the abortion deaths is unlikely because the bacteria is already present in the vaginas of 10 percent of women, and they are not dying from lethal infections: "The best explanation for this sudden spate of deaths among RU-486 patients appears to involve the immunosuppressant properties of the abortion pill RU-486...A woman's immune system is normally capable of protecting her from deadly bacteria like Clostridium sordellii, but RU-486 appears to compromise her immune system, so that it is unable to help her fight off such infections," Dr. O'Bannon explained.

Other researchers, including Dr. Sandra Kweder of the FDA's for Drug Evaluation and Research's Office of New Drugs, had another theory. She said the second part of the abortion drug causes contractions to expel the body of the dead baby and could increase a woman's susceptibility of getting the bacteria in her uterus.

Dr. James McGregor, an obstetrics professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, agreed that the problems are sufficient to warrant limiting the use of the abortion drug or pulling it from the market entirely. "I recommend we reduce or eliminate mifepristone, or at least consider that," McGregor said, and indicate that chemical abortions were much more dangerous for women than surgical abortions. O'Bannon agreed and said that claims from abortion advocates that the drug is safe because only six women have died in the United States when 500,000 have used the drug are misstating the facts. He indicated the "figures are based on sales from the distributor to prescribers, not on field tallies of actual uses by patients, so uses may be grossly inflated." [11May06, LifeNews.com http://www.lifenews.com/nat2264.html]

MATERNAL DEATH. Hemorrhage and hypertension are the chief causes of maternal deaths in developing countries, according to a report by scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland; the University of Birmingham, in London, England; and the Centro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales, in Rosario, Argentina (Khan KS et al. Lancet.2006;367:1066-1074).

In an analysis of 35 197 maternal deaths in which the reported cause of death was hemorrhage, a hypertensive disorder, sepsis, abortion, obstructed labor, ectopic pregnancy, or embolism, the researchers found that nearly 34% of maternal deaths in Africa and nearly 31% in Asia resulted from hemorrhage. Hypertensive disorders caused nearly 26% of such deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean. Abortion-related deaths were 12% in Latin America and the Caribbean and as high as 30% in some individual countries in this region. Deaths due to sepsis were also higher in developing countries than in developed nations. [http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/295/19/2240?etoc, Vol. 295 No. 19, 17May06, Joan Stephenson, PhD, JAMA. 2006;295:2240]

COLOMBIA HIGH COURT ALLOWS ABORTIONS IN RARE CASES OF RAPE, INCEST. The highest court in Colombia has weakened the South American nation's abortion law by changing it from a complete ban on abortions to allowing them in cases of rape or incest. The court also allowed abortions in very rare situations when it could be necessary to save the life of the mother. The 5-3 ruling by the Colombia constitutional court puts the nation's abortion law in line with most other South American nations, which prohibit abortion but allow them in the rare cases.

The court also ruled that abortions could be done in cases where the baby has severe physical and mental disabilities.

There is an outside chance that pro-life advocates could appeal the ruling, and a determination on that will be made soon. Should an appeal occur, it would likely be years down the road, once some of the pro-abortion judges are off the court. Raimundo Rojas, the Hispanic outreach director for the National Right to Life Committee, said the decision "is a monumentous defeat for unborn children in Latin America."

Should the ruling stand, El Salvador and Chile will be the only Latin American nations to completely prohibit abortions. Attorney Monica Roa, affiliated with the pro-abortion group Women's Link, applauded the decision, saying "This is a victory for women unparalleled in our country." She led the court battle to weaken the abortion ban. "We must educate people as to the meaning of this decision and work with all of the branches of government so that when the first woman comes forward needing a legal abortion, she will be able to exercise this right," she said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained. Rojas told LifeNews.com that Roa's group was trying to use "the 'American approach' to legalizing abortion on demand in Colombia" by getting abortion approved in the courts.

"The ramifications for the women, the families and the children of Colombia will be as disastrous as they have been in the United States," he added. Roa's group claims that about 24 percent of pregnancies in Colombia end in abortion, despite the ban.  President Alvaro Uribe also voiced his concerns about the court's decision saying he worried that abortions would be done for any reason by abortion practitioners seeking to exploit the court's ruling. Pro-life groups countered with a submission of two million signatures from Colombia residents who opposed making abortion legal.

Meanwhile, a poll last year conducted by the RCN radio network found 65.6% of the public backed the ban on abortion.  Magaly Llaguno, director of Vida Humana Internacional, which has helped pro-life groups in Colombia, says many other pro-abortion groups based in the U.S. signed on to the lawsuit Roa filed, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Catholics for a Free Choice, and several student pro-abortion organizations.

In 1994, Chief Magistrate Antonio Barrera ruled that “the Constitutional protection of human life begins at the moment of conception, considering that a separate human life exists apart from the mother.” The high court also ruled that the right of a couple to limit the number of children they will raise ends at the “moment of conception of a new human life.” The move to overturn pro-life laws is also taking place in other South American nation's and lawmakers in Brazil are expected to vote any day on whether to legalize all abortions in the early part of pregnancy. [11May06, LifeNews.com http://www.lifenews.com/nat2258.html; N Valko RN, 13May06]

HOUSE SAYS NO AGAIN TO ALLOWING MILITARY DOCTORS, HOSPITAL