Abortion pill: Facts, not theology

Abortion is a personal issue, which is best left between a woman and her physician

Ms. Pat Wiedemer, executive director for P.E.I. Right to Life, in her missive (Guardian, Sept. 1, 2017) makes a number of misleading and inaccurate statements concerning the safety of the abortion drug RU-486 (Mifegymiso) of which readers should be aware.

Her comments are clearly religiously motivated, not science or fact-driven.

In the first instance, it should be noted that Catholic Quebec has the greatest number of abortions of any province in Canada. Are all these people misguided? Should they be excommunicated?

Second, abortion-inducing drugs, such as RU-486, have been in use since 1988 in 60 countries throughout the world.

Mifepristone, similar to RU486, was licensed in France in 1988 and in the U.S. in 2000. RU 486 (Mifegymiso) was approved by Health Canada in 2015 after a two-year review.

RU-486 requires a prescription from a doctor and is not available over-the-counter. As of August 2017, 55 doctors and pharmacists on P.E.I. have registered or completed the SOGC course to prescribe Mifegymiso (G&M, Sept. 3, 2017).

Third, the abortion inducing drug Mifepristone (similar to others such as RU-486) have been approved for first and second trimester abortions by many professional medical associations including the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (2011), The World Health Organization (WHO, 2012), and in 2013-14 by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Fourth, Wiedemer makes a number of uninformed statements regarding the safety of RU-486 and similar drugs.

A 2007 study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine concluded that there was no difference in adverse side effects between an RU-486 abortion compared to those who had a surgical abortion.

In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that, “We do not know whether using mifepristone and misoprostol caused these deaths .... Fatal sepsis in...medical abortion are very rare.”

In a FDA summary study (2011) they concluded that there were only 14 deaths out of the 1.5 million women who used mifepristone, and in total there were only 2,200 reported adverse events of all kinds associated with women using mifepristone, or a mere 0.15 percent of all those using the drug.

Wiedemer misleads readers by citing the raw figures allegedly used by Physicians for Life without relating them to the overall rate of usage (denominator), which results in an extremely low incidence of problems.

If P.E.I. Right to Life is so concerned about the well being of women they should be the strongest and most vocal advocates of sex education, contraception and family planning.

Unfortunately, they have chosen to stick their heads in the sand and avoid these issues.

Pope Francis rejected the notion that,” in order to be a good Catholics we have to be like rabbits (July 12, 2016).” The Pope said that was irresponsible behaviour.

Abortion is a personal issue, which is best left between a woman and her physician.