Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

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This past March the South Dakota state Legislature approved a measure (HB 1233) that established a task force to study abortion and to report its findings to the state Legislature and the governor (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 3/21). The 17-member panel held public meetings for several months to hear testimony from experts on various scientific, social and ethical aspects related to abortion (Calvitto, Rapid City Journal, 12/14). The 2006 state Legislature can use the report when it considers whether to change any abortion-related state laws. This past Friday the task force approved it's report to the legislature.

Abortion Task Force chair disappointed with final report, process

After a contentious meeting Friday, the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion approved a final report that says the 1973 U.S. Supreme court ruling that legalized abortion should be overturned because scientific advances have since demonstrated that life begins at conception. The report says that until abortion is banned, South Dakota should seek to reduce the number of abortions performed by imposing further restrictions, such as requiring that women get more information and counseling before having abortions.

The report will be used by the 2006 South Dakota Legislature as it considers whether to change any state laws on abortions.

Several of the task force members, including those who support abortion rights, walked out of Friday's meeting before the final vote. They said the majority rejected proposals that could reduce abortions by reducing the number of unintended pregnancies in South Dakota.

It seems that the task force was dominated by such extremist elements that even anti-choice members walked out of the report approval meeting. The anit-choice chairwoman, Dr. Marty Allison, who remained in the meeting in order to vote against the report adoption, had this to say:

"The final report was authored by a few people on the task force, and it is less than completely objective and factual. It is biased and opinionated," said Dr. Marty Allison of Pierre.

:::snip:::

"Even though I'm pro-life and it's a pro-life report, I couldn't support the entire document because of those reasons," Allison told The Associated Press.

"The process through which we came to the final report, through our meetings we had, I was disappointed with that. It's not reflective of all the information we spent so much time gathering," the physician said.

:::snip:::

"The mentality of the task force was really an us-against-them mentality - pro-life, pro-choice," Allison said.

Allison said she believes the task force should have approved a proposal requiring the report to include only rigorous scientific research that is accepted by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American College of Gynecology and other professional organizations.

Evidently the report contains enough bogus faith-based "scientific" evidence to offend even the anti-choice chairperson. Of course there was also outstanding testimony given. One example is that of Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW).

Paltrow offered a grim assessment of the harm that “pro-life� legislation has done in the name of “protecting� the “unborn.� She outlined three actual cases in which hospitals successfully advocated for a cesarean section over the objections of pregnant women and their families by using the anti-abortion argument that fetuses are separate legal persons with independent rights.

The first case ends tragically, with the death of the mother and the fetus; in the second, the forced surgery turns out not to have been necessary; and the couple in the third scenario — devout Christians who are expecting their seventh child — leave the hospital that is trying to force a cesarean section on the mother and successfully have their baby elsewhere, through vaginal delivery.

Having eviscerated the argument that “pro-life� policies support the health, well-being, and autonomy of women who want to carry their pregnancies to term, Paltrow turns to the larger task of outlining genuine protections and supports for pregnant and parenting women.

But there’s just one small problem: the South Dakota legislature, despite its alleged interest in the health and welfare of women and their children, has never convened a task force to explore any of the issues she raises, let alone approved any of the measures she suggests.

This, of course, is Paltrow’s point.

“The leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in American today is murder,� Paltrow coolly informs the SDTFSA. Perhaps “a Task Force to examine why men commit violence against women…would reflect true valuing of mothers, pregnant women and their families, and life itself.�

Lynn M. Paltrow's testimony in its entirety may be found here: Testimony To The South Dakota Task Force To Study Abortion. I urge all of you to read it. If you do you'll soon see why Katha Pollitt refers to Ms. Paltrow as brilliant. Here is another example of her testimony.

It is not possible to treat pregnant women and fetuses as competing legal entities in the context of abortion without undermining the health, wellbeing and safety of all pregnant women and new mothers.

This committee also asked me to consider "the degree to which such abortion constitutes an appropriate legal waiver or termination of the relationship between the woman and the unborn child."

If pregnancy is a "legal" "relationship," with opposing rights and the possibility of state oversight, the implications for the civil rights, health and well-being of pregnant women and their children is in serious question. Does a pregnant woman who cannot overcome her addiction to cigarettes violate this "legal" "relationship," making her an appropriate subject for court ordered treatment, arrest for child endangerment, or child welfare interventions? Does a woman lose her right to informed medical decision when she becomes pregnant? Could the state mandate that all women deliver by c-section because of perceived benefits to the unborn child? Could the state outlaw vaginal births after c-sections?

Similarly, if pregnancy is viewed as a legal relationship between completely separate parties having separate, competing rights, shouldn't every woman who has experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth be questioned about the extent to which she may have contributed to that pregnancy loss and whether those actions or omissions constituted an appropriate legal waiver?

These questions do not represent far-fetched hypothetical possibilities.

For the last 30 years anti-abortion rhetoric has portrayed abortion as murder and the women who have those abortions as "baby killers" and "murderers." Increasingly, all pregnant women are being viewed as proper subjects of the criminal law and court supervision. Pregnant women in more than 30 states including South Dakota 48 have been arrested based on the claim that a health problem, action or circumstance a woman experienced during pregnancy can be treated as child abuse of she continues to term, or murder if she suffers a miscarriage or stillbirth. Women in California, 49Florida,50 Utah,51 South Carolina, 52 Tennessee,53Oklahoma,54 and North Carolina55 have been charged with manslaughter and even first-degree murder for having suffered unintentional stillbirths. Prosecutors in these cases have argued that something they did or did not do during pregnancy caused these pregnancy losses. In some cases the pregnancy loss is blamed on an untreated drug problem, in another a severely depressed woman was arrested after an attempted suicide might have contributed to a pregnancy loss, 56and in another it was the pregnant woman's decision to delay having a c-section that transformed her into a murderer.57 Such prosecutions continue despite the lack of authorizing legislation, court rulings rejecting such misuse of state law, and in spite of the overwhelming oppositions from medical, child welfare and public health organizations. 58

Today, many pregnant women and newly delivered birth mothers also face child welfare interventions based on the claim that something they did or did not do during pregnancy constitutes child abuse or neglect. Women for example who have tested positive for illegal drugs and even for drugs prescribed to them during labor, have had their children removed by child welfare authorities who viewed these women as somehow violating a contractual or legal relationship to their unborn children.59 This is true in spite of the fact that not a single state, including South Dakota, has enough drug treatment available for all of the pregnant and parenting women who want and need it. 60

Finally, the earlier exampled of forced surgery over the objections of pregnant women, husbands and doctors has been the direct result of giving legitimacy to the idea of legal separation between pregnant women and the fetuses they carry.

This Task Force must recognize that to oppose the recognition of fetal personhood as a matter of law is not to deny the value and importance of potential life as matter of religious belief, emotional conviction, or personal experience. Rather, by rejecting such a new legal construct, the Task Force can improve both maternal and fetal health and ensure that no family ever had to endure the losses that Angela Carder's* family suffered at the hands of the state, in the name of fetal rights.

::::snip:::

*Angela Carder at 27 years old and 25 weeks pregnant became critically ill. She, her husband, and her parents as well as her attending physicians all agreed on treatment designed to keep her alive for as long as possible. The hospital, however, called an emergency hearing to determine the rights of the fetus. A lawyer appointed for the fetus used the anti-abortion argument that fetuses are separate legal persons with independent rights. This lawyer argued that the fetus had a right to life and that what Angela Carder, her husband, and her family wanted did not matter. Despite testimony that a cesarean section could kill Ms. Carder, the court ordered the surgery, finding that the fetus's rights were controlling. The surgery was performed over her explicit objections and resulted in the death of both Angela and her fetus. The fetus, or as in Angela's parents words - their "unborn grandchild" - died within two hours and Ms. Carder died two days later with the c-section listed as a contributing factor 8

What Katha Pollitt said. Here is a synopsis of the report as adopted.

Report Findings, Recommendations

The report says a fetus is a human from the moment of conception and abortion terminates the life of a "unique, whole, living human being," the AP/Aberdeen American News reports. The report also states that the decision to undergo abortion in the state is neither voluntary nor informed because women do not receive enough information about the procedure and are being pressured to make the decision. "The state, the mother and the child all have interests that justify changing the laws of the state of South Dakota to protect the child's life, first and foremost, to protect the mother-child relationship, and to protect the mother's health," the report says, adding, "In fact, the state not only has an interest, it has a duty to change the law." The report recommends that the state take steps to reduce the number of abortions, including:

1. Adopting an amendment to the state constitution that gives fetuses the same protections as children;
2. Requiring physicians to personally ask women if they have been pressured into seeking abortion;
3. Requiring physicians to verify the identity of the man who impregnated the woman and report illegal sexual activities;
4. Requiring physicians to tell women about the potential risks of abortion prior to performing the procedure;
5. Requiring physicians show women undergoing abortion an ultrasound of the fetus prior to the procedure;
6. Tightening abortion clinic regulations; and
7. Strengthening laws that require fathers to support women and children (Brokow, AP/Aberdeen American News, 12/12).

I suppose the final word on this obvious mess is that of a Republican legislator, Sen. Stan Adelstein, (R) South Dakota

"We walked out the sixth time they refused to even discuss an idea that we had, and they tabled the amendment without discussion. And that was about it. We just about had gone as far as some of us could in tolerating the lack of respect for any other view than their theology and reinterpretation of science."

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In Colorado this week we have some good news. For those of you who have been following the story of the anti-choice Democratic candidate Bill Ritter I'm pleased to inform you that Candidate Ritter now has a pro-choice opponent. Gary Lindstrom announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor of Colorado in 2006, on Dec. 3rd. He is pro-choice and has spent decades in government at various levels, so he is a solid candidate. He currently represents the town of Breckenridge in the State House of Representatives. He was previously a County Commissioner, County Coroner, served in Vietnam and served as a New York City policeman for many years.

This is good news for Women. For those of you who live in Colorado, you now have a choice.

____________

In news concerning Supreme court nominee, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. a "little bird" informs me of a major push beginning Monday (Dec. 19th) to portray Alito's opponents as anti-God. Talking points for the effort, which will involve ads and grass-roots organizations, were laid out in a strategy memo by Grassfire.org, which opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. Alito's opponents are united by "an agenda to purge any and all references to religion from our public life," the memo says.

The coalition, which includes the Judicial Confirmation Network, plans to send 2.3 million e-mails on the subject and hopes to "flood Senate offices with letters, faxes and phone calls." It will be joined in the effort by Fidelis, a Roman Catholic organization that describes itself as "pro-life, pro-family and pro-religious liberty."

These are quality organizations, by the way. The Judicial Confirmation Network is running an advertising this week in defense of strip-searching 10 year old girls and Fidelis is doing battle against the non-existent, jinned up War On Religious Freedom.

Happy Holidays you guys.

____________

For a more balanced view of what I feel is the true nature of Judge Alito may i recommend the report released Dec 15 by NARAL entitled: Liberty At Risk: The Vulnerability of Reproductive Rights Under Alito

Whether Samuel Alito would vote to overrule Roe v. Wade and whether his vote would be the last necessary step to Roe’s demise are not the only questions before the Senate or the American public. For overruling Roe is not the only way to end legal abortion or make access so difficult, expensive, and dangerous that abortion’s legality is practically meaningless.1 Indeed, overturning Roe outright is not the most likely avenue for the Court and anti-choice legislatures to take in the near term.

Access to abortion services is already perilously close to non-existent in many parts of the country. Doctors are subject to an array of unnecessary restrictions, such as Missouri’s requirement that abortion providers have clinical privileges at nearby hospitals; some of these restrictions are so burdensome that there simply are no physicians able and willing to comply. Women, too, are subject to so many restrictions that in many cases traversing the legal gauntlet is, as a practical matter, already impossible.

Stacking the Court with Justices who are indisposed to find a state regulation to be an “undue burden� is as sure a way of ending legal abortion for many women in much of the country as is overturning Roe. It’s just far more subtle and less likely to create political backlash.

24 pages of excellent reasons why the Democrats had better be filibustering Alito. The stakes are too high to confirm an anti-choice nominee. If any democrats do support this nominee, I feel they should be run out of office. I personally vow to never vote for an anti-choice nominee, regardless of party.

____________

Here's some international news from Australia. I wanted to include this story, sent in by Moiv, to give some contrast between how things work down there in regards to abortion conselling and how much more considerate of women the Australian legislators seem to be.

Medicare to cover advice on abortion

The tens of thousands of women considering an abortion will be able to claim the cost of counselling on Medicare from early next year.

The federal Government will also provide professional counselling to women via a helpline that will not advocate a cause or have a financial interest.

The plans approved in principle by cabinet ministers yesterday are designed to reduce the rate of abortions, estimated to be between 85,000 and 90,000 a year.

Ministers who discussed the issue wanted to ensure the counselling was professional and not based on a pro- or anti-abortion philosophy.

:::snip:::

Parliamentary Finance Secretary Sharman Stone said yesterday the hotline and counselling were good ideas only if they provided unbiased advice.

:::snip:::

"At the end of the day, we have to keep it fair. We don't live in a Third World country and we have to treat our women as equals and give them all the informed choices."

I haven't heard anything like that coming from our Republican leaderhip here in the United States, have you? No, they wish to restrict both choice and information with their government funded CPCs which only exist to push a philosophy and reproductive health funding for women's annual exams and birth control is being cut to fund the CPCs in the process.

____________

Here's an example from Texas thats a perfect counterpoint to the Australian article above.

Groups concerned by grants promoting pregnancy over abortion

AUSTIN - With Texas soon to award $5 million in grants to crisis pregnancy centers that promote childbirth over abortion, some abortion rights groups complain the money is being taken from clinics that provide medical care and contraception.

The Legislature voted in the spring to spend the money to implement a statewide program "for women seeking alternatives to abortion focused on pregnancy support services that promote childbirth."

Only two so-called crisis pregnancy centers - Texas Pregnancy Center Network of Bellville and The Heidi Group of Round Rock - have bid for the two-year contract, which the Texas Health and Human Services Commission is expected to award this month.

Abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood complain the program will divert money from health clinics that often serve poor women to groups whose primary goal to persuade women from having abortions. About 79,000 abortions are performed in Texas each year.

According to the Heidi Group Web site, it is a Christian-based group that offers pregnant women hope "through a relationship with Christ." It also says the groups offers free pregnancy tests and "limited medical services."

The site also offers advice on how supporters can get their church involved and urges Christians to be involved in politics and education.

"Women are not going to get medical care," said Sarah Wheat, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas Foundation. "They're being sent to get preached to."

The money is being cut from Planned Parenthood to pay for the CPCs. Here's a first person account that Moiv posted at Our Word that gives the frightening details of what's really going on in the Lone Star State.

Why Tanya cried

so,
this morning i dragged myself out of bed before dawn to be at planned parenthood at 730 and wait in the freezing morning shade until 9 for my annual exam. at 930, myself and the 25 other women (of color.of course) grumbled in solidarity and confusion, wondering why we were still waiting and shivering. finally an employee opened the doors and coralled us inside just to inform us that there would be no walk-in exams today.or tomorrow.or ever. are you kidding me? i thought. nope.no joke.

turns out the good ol boys at the texas state legislature cut pp's funding by 40% last friday. i stood in the office stunned while 3 mothers began to cry. another women, at least 65 years old, turned to me and asked, "que dijo?" what did she say? as i tried to explain what i still didn't understand, i began to feel my anger swell. overnight one of the safest, most reliable, most critical social services vanished. all patients over 24 years old have to seek new clinics, all birth control now costs $25/month, all annuals $125, all pregnancy tests $30.

Somehow I really don't think the historical Jesus would approve. Does anyone besides me detect their racist radar lighting up? you know, in addition to the sexism that's also lighting up the phosphors.

Madman blogged on this matter at Liberal Street Fighter

Jane Crow - Spreading Oppression's Black Wings and at boomantribune where it was Number one on the recommended diaries list. Be sure and read his piece.

Media girl was kind enough to post front page cites and a link to Moivs piece: In Texas, "pro-life" policies don't apply to the living and MG's post was also syndicated on feminist blogs.

____________

The following seems to be turning into a weekly feature here at Reproductive Rights Week in Review. What I'm speaking of is misrepresentation by the press of Emergency Contraception functionality. This week's news story ran in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette in an article by Tracie Mauriello.

Middle ground sought on morning-after pill

HARRISBURG -- Patient care and pharmacists' rights are converging in the debate over the morning-after pill.

State Rep. Dan Frankel believes he's found middle ground in legislation that would ensure patients' access to emergency contraceptives while allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense them based on their personal views against abortion.

:::snip:::

Pharmacists who equate emergency contraception with abortion, though, say there is no middle ground.

"I have a moral problem with it. It's stopping a life, and my job is to protect that life," said John G. Yakim of Yakim Pharmacy in Plum.

Patrick Hopkins, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates, countered that emergency contraception is not the same as abortion and will not end an established pregnancy.

It can, though, prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall, which constitutes the beginning of pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

To the Catholic Church, pregnancy occurs at the time of fertilization, not implantation. It is immoral, therefore, to take the morning-after pill because its only purpose is to destroy human life, said Brother Shawn Matthew Anderson, a former pharmacist who now is a monk of St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe.

"This is an act that is anti-life in the purest sense," he said.

Well, I'm sorry "Brother" Shawn, a woman taking Plan B hardly qualifies as being anti-life.

here's the proof: How does Emergency Contraception Work

And frankly, even if the drug functioned as "Brother" Shawn assumes (wrongly) that it does, a woman should have the right to choose anyway. Assigning some type of god-given rights to a recently fertlized egg that supercede the ability of a woman to make basic moral decisions about her own body seems much more "anti-life" to me. Patriarchy is in full view within the men's opinions listed above by my way of thinking, and abusive to women's autonomy as usual.

(Tracie Mauriello can be reached at tmauriello@post-gazette.com and if anyone wants to take her to task for the following mis-statement "It can, though, prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall, which constitutes the beginning of pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists." please feel free because reporters misreporting facts such as these are empowering a viewpoint that is killing us.

____________

Here's a brilliant piece by Ann Bartow on her thoughts regarding parental notification that touches on a double standard I've been told is often observed: a sudden change from opposition to abortion in anti-choice women and/or parents, due to personal circumstance. I'm citing a small part of it to illustrate my point but please take the time to read all of her points as well.

Parental Notification

Though I do not, and would not, propose this in any practical sense for a variety of reasons, I sometimes wish that all women could be compelled to publicly declare themselves in favor of, or opposed to, abortion rights. The consequence of declaring oneself opposed to abortion rights would be that you couldn't obtain one. You'd be free to change your declaration, and announce that you had changed your mind and now supported abortion rights, and that would make the procedure available to you. Once you had an abortion, however, while you'd be able to again change your public statement back to "oppose," your declaration would contain a notice that your opposition had suddenly dissipated when you wanted to take advantage of the legality of abortion, and your opposition had only returned afterwards. The declarations would be tallied and compiled into three categories: "Support," "oppose" and "hypocrit."

If women knew that the availability of abortion to themselves personally was linked to their willingness to openly declare themselves pro-choice, I suspect that a lot fewer women would be publicly anti-choice. If women had to declare themselves pro-choice to obtain abortions for their daughters, the pro-choice contingent would increase even more. Most data suggests that the majority of women in this country already support abortion rights, despite the censure they may receive, and without receiving any privileges for doing so. They are simply honest.

____________

The following story ran on the 8th of December and I've been trying to get this section ready since then. I had intended to post it as a stand alone piece but I've been so busy I wasn't able to finish it in a timely manner. Anyway, here's a particularly egregious example of misreporting from The Hill, which bills itself as The Newspaper for and about the U.S. Congress. The article is written by By Jeffrey Young and can be found here:

FDA pulled from both sides on abortion pill
By Jeffrey Young

In the article Mr. Hill makes the following statements

Most recently, the FDA announced that four California women died from blood infections after inducing abortions using the pill along with another drug called misoprostol.

A report written by scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms that the drugs were responsible for the fatalities but stops short of saying the medicine is generally not safe. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Dec. 1.

The CDC did not say that Mifeprex was responsible for the deaths; it said that the women took Mifeprex followed by misoprostol, and then developed Clostridium infections of unknown origin and died within days. They strongly suspect there's a causative link somewhere, but don't know what it is. Using the words "confirms that the drugs were responsible" is misleading.

here's what the New England Journal of Medicine says:

Fatal Infections Associated with Mifepristone-Induced Abortion

On July 19, 2005, the agency reported that it was aware of four U.S. deaths due to sepsis in women who had used mifepristone and announced its second revision to the black-box warning in eight months. This revision named Clostridium sordellii as responsible for two of the deaths and specifically called attention to the somewhat unusual and rather distinctive signs and symptoms associated with these infections — an absence of fever but the presence of refractory hypotension, hemoconcentration, effusions in multiple serous cavities, and dramatic leukocytosis. A Canadian woman is also known to have died in 2001 of the same bacterial infection under similar circumstances.

and the following statement is even more clear on the lack of "confirmation that the drugs were responsible".

Abortion Pill Deaths Probed

The families of three of those four women are suing the drug's maker, Danco Laboratories. And last week, The New York Times quoted anonymous sources at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as saying the agency would convene a special scientific meeting on the deaths early next year, in cooperation with the CDC.

Complicating matters is the fact that experts have yet to find a causative link between the use of Mifeprex (mifepristone) -- the so-called "abortion pill" that is usually taken with a second drug, misoprostol -- and C. sordellii infection.

"That's what's bugging everybody -- there's no obvious pathophysiological link between these medications and this, or any other, infection," says Dr. Michael F. Greene, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and director of obstetrics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Greene is also the author of a journal editorial commenting on the CDC report.

and then Mr. Young states:

After reporting the mifepristone-related deaths, the FDA tasked the CDC to investigate the deaths to determine whether the drug poses a major safety risk for a large number of people. Though there have been at least five deaths, including one due to an ectopic pregnancy that resulted when the drug failed, about 460,000 prescriptions for mifepristone have been filled since 2000. One Canadian woman also died from a blood infection.

The death from an ectopic pregnancy didn't happen because the drug failed; ectopics aren't treated with Mifeprex. Death is the natural outcome of an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, which will almost invariably rupture a Fallopian tube and cause massive internal bleeding. The fact that the patient in question had taken Mifeprex has no bearing on the safety of the drug at all. Based on the frequent use of Ultrasound exams I would suspect that the ectopic pregnancy was a twin that "got away". What's really at stake in the case can be read about here:

Lawsuit Alleges Medical Malpractice in RU-486-Related Death

(CNSNews.com) - The abortion clinic that administered the drug RU-486 to a Tennessee woman allegedly failed to diagnose a life-threatening medical condition (the ectopic pregnancy), resulting in her death, according to a malpractice lawsuit filed by the deceased woman's estate.

:::snip:::

Officials at the Volunteer Women's Medical Clinic in Knoxville declined to comment on the pending lawsuit. But according to Samples, the clinic disputes the allegations made by Vise's boyfriend described in the complaint.

The clinic, Samples said, claims that it responded to Vise's call for medical advice by urging her to immediately go to a doctor in her hometown of Chatanooga.

Also, said Samples, the clinic claims the ultrasound did show a fetus in the uterus, which would indicate a normal pregnancy.

Mr Yong also states:

"The article also notes that combining mifepristone with mifepristol was not specifically approved by the FDA. Local and state officials in California also contributed to the report.

Mifeprex plus misoprostol is the FDA-approved protocol.

The approved Mifeprex regimen for the medical termination of intrauterine pregnancy through 49 days’ pregnancy is:

• Day One: Mifeprex Administration: 3 tablets of 200 mg of Mifeprex orally at once.
• Day Three: Misoprostol Administration: 2 tablets of 200 mcg of misoprostol orally at once.
• Day 14: Post-Treatment: the patient must return to confirm that a complete termination has occurred. If not, surgical termination is recommended to manage medical abortion treatment failures.

This misconception is due to the fact that in almost all cases the protcol used in clinic is Mifeprex and intravaginal misoprostol, not oral misoprostol. However the statement implies that "combining mifepristone with mifepristol was not specifically approved by the FDA" when, in fact, it most certainly was.

As an aside I asked Moiv about the differences why intravaginal application was prefered over oral and here's her reply:

Two reasons:
1. Higher efficacy rate (96% as opposed to about 92%)
2. Fewer GI side effects from the miso -- taken orally, it's famous for causing severe abdominal cramping and diarrhea.

The fact that women prefer it is nice, but not a factor in persuading doctors to change an abortion protocol. There's nothing magic about the reason the FDA trials used misoprostol taken orally. It was originally FDA approved (as Cytotec) for gastric damage in people who take NSAIDS for arthritis, so they naturally swallowed it. That's the only way it had ever been taken, so that's just how the FDA gave it.

The FDA trials also used 600 mg of Mifeprex, but doctors now almost universally give only 200 mg -- it works the same, and is much less expensive for the patient. Using 200 mg of Mifeprex and vaginal misoprostol is known as the "evidence-based protocol" and this protocol was tested as extensively as the FDA trial protocol before being generally adopted.

The more I prepare Week in Review the more I'm aware of how often the reporters misreport the facts. I find this particular article very disturbing because this paper is read by our congressmen, congresswomen and senators, the very people who hold the power to make the laws controlling reproductive rights. How good a job can they really do when they're misinformed?

Also for more information on the intent behind the article you can read about the issue at the Kaiser Foundation:

The Hill Examines Advocate Skepticism Over FDA's Ability To Independently Evaluate Mifeprex's Safety

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