Not so safe

Michelle Gress discusses how RU-486 abortions aren't quite as safe for women as the media headlines recently portrayed them to be.

RU-486 has caused a tremendously high rate of adverse events relative to the number of women who have taken the drug. As of last year, when the FDA provided information to the Subcommittee for its investigation, RU-486 had caused the deaths of at least eight women, nine life-threatening incidents, 232 hospitalizations, 116 blood transfusions, and 88 cases of infection. In total, we knew of more than 1070 adverse event cases associated with RU-486, out of only 575,000 prescriptions at most. This is even more alarming in light of the fact that adverse event reporting is notoriously low for any drug, much less a drug associated with abortion, for which reporting is expected to be even lower.