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by Mohammed Ayub Ali Khan for Islam Online CHICAGO & WASHINGTON (Islam Online & AFP) - In a major victory for pro-choice advocates in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale of the controversial abortion pill, RU-486, after a 12-year battle. RU-486 will be distributed in U.S. as mifepristone and will be available in one month. RU-486, which can be used by women who are up to 56 days pregnant, prevents a fertilized egg from attaching itself to the uterus. This early abortion drug is currently used in France, Britain, China and ten other countries. President George Bush banned its use in the U.S., but his decision was reversed by the Clinton administration. The FDA's decision, coming as it does in the midst of hot political season, is already showing its repercussions. Pro-choice activists, who attempted to bar the pill from going on sale, now say that they will support Republican candidate George W. Bush who opposes the pills' distribution. Bush, who appeared with wife Laura on the CNN's "Larry King Live" news program on Tuesday, said in a statement earlier Thursday that the FDA decision was "wrong," and warned that "making this abortion pill widespread will make abortions more and more common, rather than more and more rare." Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore said on the same program today, "I strongly support a woman's right to choose," adding, "I do not think that it ought to be kept away from women for some political reason." Gore continued, emphasizing that the November 7 election could decide the future of abortion rights in the United States because the next president will appoint up to three members of the nine-member Supreme Court, which could overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision that legalized the procedure. Bush generally opposes abortion rights but has said agreeing with him on that issue would not be a "litmus test" in choosing Supreme Court justices. Gore agreed that reducing the number of abortions was the "common ground" in the often vitriolic U.S. debate on the issue, but emphasized he thought family planning, education, and "appropriate means of birth control" was the solution. Advocates for and against RU-486 paralleled their positions on the issue of abortion. Judie Brown of the American Life League said, "We will not tolerate the FDA's decision to approve the destruction of innocent human persons through chemical abortion." Representative Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has promised legislation restricting access to the pill by placing severe limits on which doctors would be allowed to administer the drug, said, "Never before has the FDA approved a drug intended to kill people." Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation, however, said, "At long last, science trumps anti-abortion politics and medical McCarthyism." |
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