In recent years, RU-486 and medical abortions have been really pushed on women. What do
you think about RU-486?
The short answer to that question is that I can't understand why any woman would want
to have a medical abortion, and I'll explain why—no matter how abortion minded she is.
There are a lot of problems with RU-486. First off, it is—a medical abortion is very distinctly
different from a surgical abortion. In a medical abortion, the lady takes pills—takes her
RU-486 medication, and then follows it up with a second medication, typically one called
Cytotec 24-48 hours later. It has a significant percentage of side effects associated with
it. That combination is—is well known to cause cramping, hemorrhaging, nausea, vomiting,
and you know, a lot of extremely unpleasant symptoms. The—the really interesting thing
about it, though, is—RU-486 is FDA approved up to 7 weeks from last period. It is commonly
used off-label to 9 weeks. OK, but even at 7 weeks of gestation, the failure rate was
5% at 7 weeks. As gestation gets further along, the failure rate increases. At 8 weeks, the
failure rate is—uh, what was it—8%. At nine weeks the failure rate is 10%. Imagine,
I mean, you're going to go through trouble of having this abortion. You’re gonna go
through—a significant patient—percentage of patients will go through a lot of very
unpleasant symptoms, and the abortion won't even work! And then you end up with a surgical
Suction D & C abortion that you could have had in the first place!
And are there other health problems or—along the way, as well, as far as having a failure rate?
Very definitely. There is one huge difference between a surgical and medical abortion. When
you do a surgical abortion, you have tissue, you have baby parts, you have all the contents
of the uterus and if the doctor is doing what the doctor is supposed to do, sends off that
tissue to be looked at by a pathologist, who will then confirm whether or not there is
pregnancy tissue—products of conception—in that specimen. You do a D & C abortion, you
get back a pathology report says there are products of conception present, you're good.
You — you've done the procedure, you've done it correctly. In a medical abortion there
is no tissue to be examined. That woman essentially pays that money and goes through this procedure
to have, basically, to have an induced miscarriage, which can happen at home, in her car, or anywhere
else. But there is no tissue to be examined. The key there then becomes when a—when a
surgical abortion is done, and no products of conception is seen, it means either the
doctor missed the pregnancy entirely—which can happen, not very often, but it can—or
more frequently, she has a tubular ectopic pregnancy, and that can be fatal.
Can you explain more the danger between—the danger for a woman who may have an ectopic
pregnancy if she's seeking an RU-486 abortion?
You must rule out an ectopic pregnancy. But the only way to rule out an ectopic pregnancy
if you're going to use RU-486 is to do an ultrasound, and not everyone prescribing RU-486
is getting ultrasounds. There have been deaths associated with RU-486, mostly from infections
or undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy can kill you in no time flat, because
pregnancy was never meant to be in a fallopian tube, and it can only go so far before that
tube ruptures and hemorrhage, sometimes severe hemorrhage, follows.
Another reason, or justification pro-abortion advocates use for abortion-on-demand in America
is that it's necessary because of ectopic pregnancies.
That's rubbish. Ectopic pregnancies are life-threatening. Treating an ectopic pregnancy is not doing
an abortion—it is saving that woman's life. It’s that simple.
I arrived at my office one day and there were picketers surrounding our building, praying, holding their signs.
They didn't have our names on the signs, but we knew they were there for us.
And people frequently ask me, "What are you thinking when we're outside picketing?"