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The macabre (and probably prophetic) pitch lines above are not far from what the American people were asked to swallow last week. After four years of study and not a little political pressure from the Clinton administration, the FDA approved the French abortion pill, RU486, for use in the U.S. For all the smiles and happy talk surrounding its release, RU486 heralds an ethical and cultural slippage of enormous proportions.
The abortion pill promises freedom, convenience, everything under the sun, to any willing hit-man (or hit-woman as the case may be). It transforms the most sensitive, nurturing, lovely creature in God's creation — a mother — into a murderer. And forces her into having to live with the consequences. With the abortion pill, there is no third party. The mother herself not only condemns her child to death, she actually commits the act, and must then face the grizzly results.
“It will make choice easier,” abortion supporters cheered upon learning of the FDA approval. It certainly will ensure the long-sought “privacy” that the Supreme Court and abortion cheerleaders desire, but what effect will it have on the poor girl taking this baby pesticide?
The FDA itself said women taking Mifepristone (the American name for RU486) should expect nine to 16 days of cramping and bleeding. During the clinical trials, a woman in Idaho bled to death. About one percent of women taking the drug in trials needed surgery to stop the continuous bleeding. In some cases, surgical abortions were needed when the drug proved only partially effective.
The evidence proves that this is not a clean or easy procedure. It is a long, slow, painful process that often takes a severe emotional toll on the woman who takes it. The “problem” with the drug is that the child it kills does not simply evaporate. The tiny human person is “delivered,” if you will, by the mother gradually over time, at the grocery store, in the car and at home. The mother may even see the aborted child at some point.
European women who used the drug report severe psychological problems resulting from the experience. Many are haunted by the thought of their child dying in the womb over several days; others are traumatized by having to witness the horrific result of the drug.
Still, so-called “women's advocates” cheered the arrival of this lethal killer into the American market. Imagine, the first drug to be approved by the FDA that has the explicit purpose of ending human life! No wonder the FDA refused, for the first time in its history, to reveal the name or location of the manufacturer. They won't even say who at the FDA issued the approval! Reports are now surfacing that the drug may actually be produced in China. At last, a Chinese secret that America wants to steal!
The grand tragedy here is the isolation that the pill will deliver upon the girl or woman seeking an abortion. Mifepristone will forever separate abortion from public shame — and neutralize the powerful effect upon the conscience shame can have. How often have people amended their actions for fear of being discovered publicly? Women taking this pill will have no such opportunity.
The abortion pill — soon to be called “The Early Option Pill” — allows the most heinous act imaginable to be conducted privately in the comfort of one's own home. But while society may be shut out, the human conscience will not be, because privacy in no way alters the reality of what is taking place. Only in this scenario, the woman will have more time to contemplate the severity of her action, and will be forced to face its cruel outcome alone.
Killing should not be so easy; certainly not in a land founded on the principles of life and liberty. Suddenly the absurd pitch lines of the beginning of this article begin to sound realistic. I'm thinking Lady Macbeth should apply for American citizenship about now. She'd fit right in.
