OTTAWA, Ontario, January 13, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Campaign Life Coalition, Canada’s pro-life political organization, has announced that the theme for this year’s National March for Life will focus on the application asking Health Canada to approve the abortion drug mifepristone, also known as RU-486.
The organization decided to go ahead with the theme, ‘RU-486, or RU-4LIFE?’, after Health Canada confirmed last week that they are currently reviewing an application to approve the drug. The National March for Life is planned for May 8, 2014.
“On May 8, Prime Minister Harper will have to respond to the tens of thousands of Canadians who not only oppose the lawlessness on abortion in this country, but who also don’t want this human pesticide that kills babies and their mothers to be available in Canada,” said Jim Hughes, President of Campaign Life Coalition, in a press release Monday morning.
“RU-486 is a lethal drug that has been shown to produce severe bleeding in 10% of the women who take it,” he added. “The fact that Health Canada has not yet rejected the application is appalling.”
The application was first revealed in a November article published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal that urged approval. The same day Deputy Health Minister George Da Pont caused confusion when he told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health that no such application existed. The CMAJ authors said, however, that they had seen it and Da Pont’s remark was inexplicable.
LifeSiteNews attempted to clarify the matter with Health Canada repeatedly, but received no response until January when they confirmed the application and said Da Pont had misspoke at the committee meeting.
Proponents of the abortion drug have pointed out that it is already approved in 57 other countries, including France, Britain, and the United States. According to the CMAJ authors, mifepristone is the “gold standard” of medical abortion drugs.
Serious concerns have been raised, however. One of the critics of the abortion method is pro-abortion health researcher Renate Klein, co-author of the book RU486: Misconceptions, Myths and Morals. According to Klein, RU-486 is “an unsafe, second-rate abortion method with significant problems.”
She notes, for example, a 2006 study by Régine Sitruk-Ware that found that 10% of women experienced severe bleeding after taking the drug and 0.25% needed blood transfusions. She also highlights a 2011 report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finding that 14 American women died after taking the drug.
The drug underwent clinical trials in Canada in 2001, but they were halted after a Vancouver woman died of toxic shock.
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Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer for Campaign Life Coalition, noted that while the theme of the March for Life focuses on the RU-486 application, the even remains a witness to the fact that all lives should be protected.
“Those who attend the National March for Life desire a law that protects all human beings from the time of conception (fertilization) to natural death,” she said. “Whether the abortion is surgical or chemical, the end result is the same, a dead human being. A federal election approaches and pro-life voters will be intently watching how the Harper government handles this file.”
Campaign Life Coalition has launched a petition to Health Minister Rona Ambrose and is urging supporters to contact Members of Parliament about the issue. (Find contact information for MPs here.)