by Rusty Pugh & Bill Fancher
The nation's largest pro-life group says a new survey that reveals the unpopularity of the dangerous abortion drug is good news.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has released the results of a survey of doctors regarding the prescribing of the abortion drug RU-486. According to the survey, only 6% of OB-GYNs offered the abortion method to women, and only 1% of general practitioners made it available.
National Right to Life's Laura Echevarria says this means there have been fewer abortions. “Fewer women were being exposed to this dangerous drug,” she says, “and certainly by having such a small percentage of doctors actually offer RU-486, it means that the number of abortion providers has not increased either.”
“That was something that we were concerned about — and something that certainly the pro-abortion groups wanted,” Echevarria says. “They wanted more doctors to offer abortion services of some kind or another, and basically they wanted your regular, general practitioner to become an abortionist. That didn't happen.”
According to the Kaiser survey, physicians not offering RU-486 for reasons other than “personal opposition” to abortion cited several factors influencing their decision. Sixty-two percent of the doctors surveyed cited lack of patient demand.
A Canadian woman who was enrolled in a trial of the drug died after contracting a septic infection. The Canadian trials have been halted as a result.
Holding the Door
Elsewhere on the pro-life front, one activist believes President Bush's decision to allow limited embryonic stem cell research is a Pandora's Box. “Because of the address that President Bush gave, people have … sat back and [now feel] the decision's been made [and ask] 'What's the big deal?' Actually, the door has been opened now for a lot of things to happen,” Brandi Swindell says.
“When [that happens], there are people that will push the door all the way open. They look for that crack so they can push the door open and lead the way for very destructive things.”
Consequently, Swindell says pro-lifers must be more vocal than ever in their efforts to change the way America perceives the unborn. “We have to be out here so that the rights of the pre-born are always remembered and that this issue does not die away — because it's just going to get swept under the rug and cause huge, huge problems,” she says.
Swindell, who leads a youth-oriented pro-life organization called Generation Life, believes Christians have a duty to defend the unborn — and that includes embryos, she says.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)