The Guardian 25 January, 2006
RU486 scare campaign
Jules Andrews
A new campaign to have the Federal Government retain the ban on the abortion pill RU486 on health grounds is simply a back-door push by religious groups to have abortion banned entirely.
RU486 is a drug which blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. It has been used safely by over 21 million women world-wide.
The drug was banned from use or importation in Australia by the Howard Government in 1996 — as a trade-off with fundamentalist Christian Senator Brian Harradine for his vote on the sale of Telstra.
Australians Against RU486, a coalition of groups campaigning for the Federal Government to maintain its ban on the drug, is currently running a scare campaign focussing on the possible negative side-effects of the drug. It claims that rural women are particularly at risk.
Not surprisingly, the coordinator of the campaign against the RU486 pill is none other than a close associate and former employee of fanatical Christian fundamentalist and Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott.
A campaign headquarters has been set up in the Sydney suburb of Paddington. Financed by anonymous "private donors" the interior has been swathed with Australian flags.
Challenging the campaign putting the case in favour of the drug’s approval are a wide range of health and community organisations, and women parliamentarians from across the political spectrum.
The Australian Medical Association has also come out in favour of the drug’s approval, and dismissed the back-door attempts by anti-abortionists to rule out the drug on health and safety grounds.
In a media interview late last year the National President of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, said: "… this drug should be made available as a substitute for current surgical abortions which are carried out — as an alternative. What this is is a safer method for some women. It has with it very many less side effects and problems than surgical abortion, because surgical abortions have problems not only of the procedure itself, but also of anaesthetic."
Dr Haikerwal said the health complications being reported as a great concern by the "anti" campaign were a furphy in that they were no different from the problems associated with any obstetric procedure — including caesarean sections.
RU486 was first discovered in 1980 and clinical testing began in 1982. The drug was first approved for use in France in 1988 and by 1999 had been approved by most other European countries.
The first Bush administration banned the importation of the drug into the US in 1989, but overturned the ban in 1993. It was fully approved for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2000.
In the five years since then the drug has been used in 530,000 abortions in the USA. Only four deaths were reported.
In contrast, in the year 2000 alone there were 27 deaths from Aspirin.