Abortion-related News
Two more women have died after taking the "abortion pill", RU-486. The pills were distributed by Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics. I'm glad to see that Planned Parenthood is using MY taxpayer dollars (and yours) to "protect" mothers and children.
Utah Governor Jon Huntsman signed into law a bill that augments the older rule calling for parental notification when minors seek an abortion. The new law requires parental consent. This law sounds like a good one to me, it may save many lives. But I think we (who are pro-life) should take seriously the warnings of critics that this law could put some girls in the difficult possition of choosing between trying to get permission from an abusive father or having an illegal abortion (or some other desperate action). I doubt this would happen much, but the possibility seems real and should be addressed.
Abortion Delenda Est!
Utah Governor Jon Huntsman signed into law a bill that augments the older rule calling for parental notification when minors seek an abortion. The new law requires parental consent. This law sounds like a good one to me, it may save many lives. But I think we (who are pro-life) should take seriously the warnings of critics that this law could put some girls in the difficult possition of choosing between trying to get permission from an abusive father or having an illegal abortion (or some other desperate action). I doubt this would happen much, but the possibility seems real and should be addressed.
Abortion Delenda Est!
Labels: life and bio-ethics
posted by Rev. Daniel McLain Hixon at 3/19/2006
4 Comments:
Daniel,
I followed your comment on Nate's latest blog post. Thanks for posting about this--I had no idea that the pill was dangerous. Very interesting.
I think you are confused. RU-486, the "abortion pill" is not the same as the "morning after pill" or Plan B. Plan B is a larger dose of progesterone, the contraceptive medication in "the Pill." It must be taken within 3 days of unprotected sex, and only works if the embryo has not yet implanted in the uterus.
RU-486, on the other hand, is used to induce a chemical abortion a few weeks into pregnancy (ie after implantation). RU-486 must be taken with a doctor's supervision.
By the way, the death rate from RU-486 (7 in 250,000), is lower than the maternity mortality rate (7.5 in 100,000). So it's actually still safer to have a chemical abortion than to take the pregnancy to term.
"Anonymous" is quite right that I used the wrong nickname for the pill here. This has been duly corrected. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.
I am aware that the death rate for the mother is relatively low (though dying due to taking an approved "safe" drug is never OK). However the death rate among children is rather high: around 250,000 per 250,000 pregnancies. So - just to have some fun playing with numbers - factoring in our infant mortality rate based on the UN core report of the United states there are approximately 717.5 deaths (mother or child) per 100,000 pregnancies that are carried all the way. On the other hand there are 50,001.4 deaths (mother or child) per 100,000 pregnancies ended by this particular (RU-486) pill. However, looking at the UN report it remains unclear to me if stillborns are factored into the infant death rate. If they are not then obviously that 717 figure will be a little higher; but i suspect it will not be the 49,284 deaths per 100,000 higher that it would need to be to overtake the death rate from the drug. :)
Another resource for you: http://www.ng2000.com/fw.php?tp=abortion
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