The Human Pesticide

Controversial abortion pills are a form of chemical warfare against our own species.

Will the availability of an “abortion pill” in this country make abortion a nonissue? That’s what leaders of prochoice and population control organizations are hoping and leaders in the prolife movement are fearing.

Those who pin their hopes on the introduction of an “abortion pill” believe it will render moot the question George Bush stumbled over in a presidential debate last fall. When asked whether, after making abortion illegal, his administration would send women who have abortions to prison, he had to admit he hadn’t thought about the penalties. Although, according to Laurie Ramsey of Americans United for Life, it is highly unlikely that in a post-Roe environment women who abort would be imprisoned, proabortion activists nevertheless want an at-home abortion pill. Such a device would make it extremely difficult to put teeth into antiabortion legislation. After all, it is nearly impossible to enforce criminal penalties on any activity carried on in the privacy of one’s own bathroom and for which any conceivable evidence could be routinely flushed down the toilet.

Removing early-term abortions from the clinic to the boudoir would make the abortion option seem just too easy. Thus, Richard Glasow of the National Right to Life Committee told National Public Radio that his organization would consider a boycott of any company that test marketed an abortion pill in the United States. Indeed, such a drug is a threat to the unborn that should be fought, as in the past, with education, economic pressure, and political persuasion.

Public Displeasure, Government Greed

An abortion pill was marketed in France this fall under the trade name of Mifepristone. Widely referred to as RU 486, it had been approved for distribution by the Chinese government, and was expected to be released in three additional countries. But in a surprise announcement a month after the drug’s release, Roussel Uclaf, the French pharmaceutical company that developed and distributed Mifepristone, announced that it would suspend worldwide distribution of the pill. A spokesperson for Roussel said the decision came in response to “the outcry of public opinion at home and abroad” against the drug. (According to one source, 20,000 people marched on the French Ministry of Health last spring to show their displeasure with the government’s role in licensing the drug.)

That France should have approved even the experimental use of such a drug is indeed curious considering that the government fights the country’s decline in population by paying cash bonuses to families that have more children. But then that same government is also part-owner of Roussel Uclaf (a 36.25 percent share). We have seen the enemy, and it is our greed.

Not surprisingly, the French government has, as of this writing, demanded that Roussel Uclaf put RU 486 back on the market (as have the World Health Organization and other prestigious medical power groups). Thus, the future of this particular drug remains to be seen. Yet one thing is certain. Proabortion groups in the United States and elsewhere will continue to work for an easier, less clinical abortion. Even as the French ministry of health was licensing RU 486 in France, the New England Journal of Medicine was reporting about Epostane, a similar drug from Holland used for early abortions.

No doubt there will be more.

The Next Thalidomide?

RU 486 is a synthetic steroid that blocks progesterone, the hormone that allows a fertilized ovum to implant in the womb. When taken in the first seven weeks following the onset of the last menstrual period, it causes a miscarriage accompanied by a heavy menstrual flow that lasts from 5 to 17 days. Studies rate its effectiveness in the early termination of pregnancy at about 80 percent. When followed up with an injection of prostaglandin E, the effectiveness jumps to over 95 percent.

But RU 486 is not the easy, at-home, do-it-yourself technique that proabortion groups had been hoping for. In France it is administered through only about 100 licensed hospitals, and is made available to a woman only after she has signed a document acknowledging her awareness of the benefits and risks of the drug. The warnings and medical supervision are apparently necessary because extended and heavy bleeding took place in a number of cases, requiring transfusions in 13 women and surgical intervention for one woman who hadn’t stopped bleeding after 30 days.

But there is more. Not only is the pill potentially dangerous to the woman, it may be potentially catastrophic to the developing embryo if the abortion is not successful. The hormone suppressed by the drug is essential to the proper formation of the organs. If the procedure fails and a woman goes on to have her baby, there is a high probability of severe fetal defects. Moreover, some have suggested that RU 486 may be the next Thalidomide. It has a chemical structure very similar to DES (Diethyl stilbesterol), which was administered to women to prevent miscarriage. The side effects of that medicine (genital malformations and vaginal cancers) did not show up for 20 years. Because this drug can react to form a free radical in the body that can interact with maternal or fetal DNA, we could suspect that it, like DES, could be a chemical time bomb.

At Home And Alone

Those who supported the licensing of RU 486 hoped to avoid some of the possible complications of surgical abortions (perforation of the uterus and eventual sterility). But the development of an early abortion pill does something else. It transfers the act of abortion to the woman. In the surgery, there is little for a woman to see as she is draped and anesthetized. There is only the raucous roar of the vacuum aspiration, as medical personnel serve as buffers between a woman’s decision and the act of abortion. But in front of the bathroom mirror, alone with her conscience, a woman will have to watch the worry lines in her face deepen and, by herself, will have to dispose of what might have been. Whether an abortion pill is administered in a hospital setting or becomes available for home use, it may be that women will be less likely to opt for this chemical abortion if they bear a greater psychological burden.

But there is another, perhaps deeper, evil beyond the sheer wrongness of ending a life that has barely begun. That evil is the increasing tendency to treat human beings as mere biochemical machines. Abortion pills are part of a small group of pharmaceuticals that were not designed primarily to cure a disease or relieve pain. The birth control pill, it is said, was the first such noncurative medication. But the advent of RU 486 is another manifestation of the theme of much of today’s biotechnical research—that human beings are biological machines needing not only occasional repair, but improved design as well. In the case of RU 486, we must resist the “technological imperative,” the compulsion to do something simply because it is possible. And we must resist it in order to preserve our sense of the creaturely dignity of the human race.

By David Neff.

Stoned Logic

Even though such luminaries as William Buckley and Ted Koppel have advocated the legalizing of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, 90 percent of Americans oppose it. Add CHRISTIANITY TODAY to that 90 percent. Legalized drugs would be a physical and moral disaster.

Two principle arguments are raised in favor of legalized drugs. One, of course, is the libertarian position that people should be allowed to do whatever they want with their lives, as long as they don’t hurt other people.

The second argument is economic. We would save millions in law-enforcement costs, proponents say, if proscribed drugs were made legal and sold along with aspirin and laxatives on drug store shelves. Crimes such as drug smuggling and drug pushing would be eliminated, they say, and drug-related crimes such as robbery and murder would be sharply reduced.

Both arguments are woefully weak. Psychologists and counselors who work with drug addiction throw their hands up in horror at the prospect of legalized drugs. Addicts hurt far more than themselves as a result of their addictions. Families are torn apart, neighborhoods are devastated with drug-related crimes, and community values are weakened as the cumulative stores of self-discipline and abstinence are depleted.

The economic argument is even more laughable. Legalized drugs may save some law enforcement dollars in the short run, although even that is debatable. But in the long run, legalized drugs would increase the number of addicts. (If nothing else, our experience with prohibition taught us that legalization of a proscribed substance does increase consumption.) The expense to our country in terms of health costs for the rise in the number of addicts would be astronomical. Doctor and hospital fees, insurance costs, and the cost of lost hours of productive work would run the drug bill up quickly. It is ironic that even as we bemoan the billions of dollars rampant alcoholism costs our country, we are considering going down the same road with drugs.

As convincing as these practical arguments against legalization are, the decisive argument is theological. The Bible teaches that people are important to God because they carry the image of God. Any practice that defaces that image, as unregulated use of hard drugs surely does, cannot be considered consistent with Christian faith. As concerned Christians we must fight for laws that help preserve the sacred nature of individual human lives.

Such laws do far more than stop law-breaking behavior—they are indicators of what a society considers important. We consider the quality of individual human life worth fighting for.

Let’s add our Christian voice to the majority of Americans who oppose the legalization of drugs. Then let’s get to work as a church and a society and attack the pains and disappointments of life that drive people to drugs in the first place.

By Terry C. Muck.

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