by
Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 22,
2005
New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The Bush administration is fighting
a United Nations agency in an attempt to get it to stop promoting the
dangerous abortion drug RU 486. The World Health Organization wants
to place the mifepristone abortion drug on a list of essential medicines,
that make up the schedule of health care the UN advises countries to
have available.
A
UN committee that determines the list of drugs met last month and, for
the first time, approved adding the mifepristone abortion drug to the
list.
Committee members claim the drugs are needed in countries where surgical abortions are the only available abortion method. In many cases, such countries don't have adequate surgical facilities.
However, President Bush has instructed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to lobby against including the abortion drugs in the UN guide.
Though the UN committee unanimously approved adding the abortion pills to the list, the Bush administration hopes the director of the WHO will overturn the decision.
Normally the WHO director signs off on all changes to the list and the new recommendations are published within days. More than a month has passed since the committee approved the abortion drugs.
The abortion drug has had serious health consequences for women and is responsible for the deaths of women in Sweden and the United States.
Last November, the FDA put a new black box warning label on the abortion drug -- it's most severe danger warning. The change was necessary, FDA officials said, because three women have died as a result of using mifepristone and women have reported approximately 600 serious complications.
In
February, a 23 year-old
woman died in the Philippines after using Cytotec, the second part
of the dangerous abortion drug.
