Mifepristone: RU-486, Essay Example

Overview

Since mifepristone, commonly known as RU-486, was first synthesized in 1980, it has been at the center of an ongoing debate. Quickly nicknamed the ‘abortion pill’, misconceptions about its uses and debates over its right to be sold have been seen on international fronts, with arguments still in full force today.

The drug is basically a steroid which, administered to a pregnant woman before the seventh week of gestation, blocks the natural progesterone levels needed for a fetus to mature. From its first appearances, RU-486 was shown to be a highly effective and safe form of medical abortion. To date, no long-term dangers have been identified as a result of its use. Nonetheless, the very purpose for which the drug was created made its usage alternately banned, legalized, withdrawn, and always controversial.

Opposing Views

Coming on the scene when it did, RU-486 fueled both anti-abortion, or ‘pro-life’, camps, as well as abortion advocates. A woman’s reproductive rights were in the 1980’s a politically and emotionally charged issue, and the apparent ease of the drug outraged the former. The drug set off a kind of war: “Extremists in the pro-life movement began to bomb abortion clinics and take sometimes fatal shots at those working within…” (Tong, 1997, p.134). Public knowledge of how the pill actually worked was vague, but the news media had made it known that RU-486 was available only through a doctor’s direct order, and pro-life activists seized the opportunity to attack.

Meanwhile, even those in support of the drug were increasingly disturbed by how effective and pain-free it was mistakenly seen to be. The absence of complications and relatively good rate of success created an illusion, it was felt, and RU-486 was no one-shot panacea. Multiple doctor visits are required, and this in itself makes the procedure costly: “Multiple visits to a doctor bring the price tag of nonsurgical abortions up into – or above – the range of surgical abortions” (Karlson, Eisenstat, Ziporyn, 2004, p.407). Above all, pro-choice took issue with the pill being wrongly viewed as the single deciding factor in a highly complicated social issue.

Perspective

It is hard to argue that point. No matter how anyone feels about abortion, a medical treatment of any kind must be looked at as only that, and not an ethical pronouncement of any kind. Simply put, it is not the pill’s fault that it does what it does, nor is it the pill’s responsibility to dictate the morality of its usage, and we abdicate our own responsibilities when we think in this way.

As a relatively complication-free, nonsurgical abortion medication, RU-486 is inherently valuable, if only in instances wherein an early pregnancy is life-threatening. The pill as such is guilty of nothing, and further research indicates its progesterone-blocking abilities may have beneficial effects on cancer treatment and severe depression. To prohibit its usage completely is to assert that we are not capable of deciding how a certain, effective medicine can and should be administered.

“The patent for mifepristone has now lapsed in all parts of the world….This in turn makes the technology more vulnerable” (Da Costa, 2007, p.34).  This is true of countless other medications as well, and we need to think carefully before we give any of them a moral or ethical veto they do not possess, or block any because we are afraid of what we ourselves will do with it.

References

Da Costa, C.  (2007). RU-486: The Abortion Pill. Sydney, Australia: Boolarong Press.

Karlson, K.J., Eisenstat, S. A., & Ziporyn, T.D.  (2004). The New Harvard Guide to Women’s Health. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tong, R.  (1997). Feminist Approaches to Bioethics: Theoretical Reflections and Practical Applications. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.