OTTAWA, Ontario, April 17, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Health Canada’s decision whether to forbid or allow RU-486, described by abortion advocates as the “gold standard” of abortion pills, may not happen until 2015, a Canadian news agency is reporting.
Ipolitics.ca reported Wednesday that according to its sources, which were unnamed, RU-486 (mifepristone) is still going through Health Canada’s formal review process, but a decision is not expected until next year.
Health Canada told LifeSiteNews by email in March that if the drug receives a negative decision, Health Canada will not “publically [sic] disclose when or why the decision is issued.”
RU-486 has been touted by its advocates as a “safe” way for a woman to destroy a new human life inside her womb. But practically every country that has approved the method has had women die from complications of the chemical cocktail.
Last week, doctors in a Turin hospital could do nothing to save a woman who went into cardiac arrest after being administered the second part of the two-drug RU-486 combination that would expel the baby from her womb. The woman complained of not being able to breathe properly moments before her heart stopped beating.
“Everything was regulated,” doctors told the press. RU-486 has been available in Italy since 2009 and can only be administered by a doctor.
In the United Stated alone, 14 women have died after taking RU-486, reported the Food and Drug Administration in 2011.
An Australian woman died in 2010 from a severe bacterial infection in her bloodstream a few days after having an RU-486 abortion at a Marie Stopes clinic.
The British government announced in January 2004 that two women had died from RU-486 abortions, describing their deaths as “suspected fatal reactions associated with the use of RU-486.”
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16-year-old Rebecca Tell Berg of Sweden was found dead in her boyfriend’s shower in 2003 after complications arose during her RU-486 abortion. The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare in Gothenburg ruled that the woman “bled to death” as a “direct consequence” of her RU-486 abortion.
Canadian trials of the drug were halted in 2001 after a woman died from septic shock caused by her RU-486 abortion. The drug was effectively banned for use in Canada at that time.
Canada’s pro-life movement is urging Health Canada to reject the RU-486 application after abortion advocates revealed in November that an unidentified pharmaceutical company had submitted an application for the drug in 2012.
“Canada has very wisely kept this drug out of our country based on the evidence of severe side-effects and complications which include severe cramping, nausea, vomiting, heavy bleeding, heart attacks (particularly in women over thirty five and smokers),” said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer for Campaign Life Coalition, in a press release at that time.
But abortion advocates were thrown into a tizzy when Health Canada’s Deputy Minister George Da Pont went on to deny the existence of such an application. Health Canada later issued an apology for the misinformation.
A number of doctors have condemned RU-486 after finding out about the drug’s application, calling it a “grievous misuse of medical science.”
“This is death we are talking about, not just of the unborn babies but sometimes of the mothers themselves,” stated Canadian Physicians for Life.
Campaign Life Coalition has launched a petition urging Health Minister Rona Ambrose to “definitively reject” RU-486. The petition has been signed by nearly 3,000 people.
On May 8, tens of thousands are expected to gather in Ottawa for the National March for Life to demand protection for unborn children. “RU-486 or RU-4LIFE?” will be the theme of the day.
Sign petition against RU-486 here. Find out more about May 8 March for Life here.