Anne Quindlen’s Love Affair with the Abortion Pill

That’s how I’d describe this gushing, pointless editorial. It’s like Quindlen has some quota of editorials which need to focus on abortion and so in the most recent edition of Newsweek she churns one out, treating a nearly-decade old abortion method approved by the FDA in 2000 as if were some newfangled sports car.

The editorial basically reads like the Planned Parenthood web site on RU-486. Quidlen could have basically just written, “I’m phoning my column in this week. Please read this web site.”

There’s no mention of the deaths or the numerous serious injuries to women caused by this abortion method. No mention of how Planned Parenthood prescribed the abortion pill in a different way than the FDA protocol and then quietly changed its protocol after a few women died getting chemical abortions at their facilities.

By Quindlen’s description, an RU-486 chemical abortion sounds like an average period. It’s just some “cramping, bleeding, (and) pain” afterall. Plus, you get “the end of a pregnancy.” Hurray!!!

Probably the worst part of the editorial is when Quindlen tries to make an argument.

RU-486 flies in the face of anti-abortion orthodoxies, and not simply because some physicians who have never dreamed of performing a surgical abortion have no qualms about making the medication available. It counters the irresponsibility myth, which suggests that women who end pregnancies are thoughtless, feckless, and have not bothered with birth control or matrimony, despite the fact that many women who have abortions are married and were using contraception that failed. RU-486, which now accounts for 14 percent of all abortions nationwide, demands a high degree of responsibility. A woman has to ascertain early that she is pregnant and then take charge of the process herself, choosing to deal at home with the results.

Okay... so because women can quickly get an abortion after getting pregnant they are therefore responsible? Isn’t this a little like claiming someone who gets in a car accident is responsible because they left the scene quickly?