Mifepristone: A Proven Safe and Effective Choice

Washington, DC - Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, urged Congress to stand up for women’s health and not cave in to pressure from anti-choice groups’ call for the removal of safe, effective mifepristone from the marketplace.

Keenan submitted testimony to the Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, which held a hearing on mifepristone.

Mifepristone, also known by its original name RU 486, is a safe and effective method of nonsurgical abortion. For nearly two decades, millions of women worldwide have safely used mifepristone – an early-abortion option that does not require surgery or anesthesia.

“Having failed to stop mifepristone’s approval for use in the United States, the anti-choice movement is now engaged in a campaign to undermine public confidence in the drug. But they will fail because the facts are clear,” Keenan wrote in the testimony. “Step by step, this Congress is making legal abortion more and more difficult to obtain. I urge you not to follow that course, and instead to work with us to make abortion less necessary, not more dangerous.”

Anti-choice groups are claiming that mifepristone poses a threat to women’s health. They are blaming mifepristone for a rare but serious bacterial infection (clostridium sordellii) – but as reported in today’s Washington Post, federal agencies said last week that the bacteria also appears in other pregnancy - related cases.

Sandra Kweder, deputy director of the FDA's Office of New Drugs, told the Post, "The situation is far more complicated than we originally imagined, and far more broad than anything limited to this drug."

Please click here for a PDF of the full text of the testimony submitted by Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Contact:
Ted Miller, 202.973.3032