It is the first known death in Australia from the controversial pill, which was the centre of a heated debate in Federal Parliament in 2006, and more recently a criminal trial involving a young couple in the courts of Queensland.
The woman died in 2010 from sepsis – that is, a severe bacterial infection in the bloodstream – several days after being prescribed the drug, otherwise known as Mifepristone or Mifegyne, from a Marie Stopes International Australia (MSIA) clinic.
The news reached the public after the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) – Australia’s government agency responsible for approving drugs – issued a notice to RU486 prescribers advising them to take a more active role in following-up with patients who are issued the drug.
The TGA and MSIA, claiming respect for patient confidentiality, have not released any details of the circumstances of the woman’s death.
The case was reported to a coroner, but no inquest was convened.
MSIA clinical services director Jill Michelson told The Australian newspaper that the woman had died some days after having the medical abortion; she could not say whether there had been further contact between the service and the woman.
“This is a tragic outcome and our sympathies are with her family. The coroner dispensed with holding an inquest, and the case is closed,” she said.
RU486 is usually administered in a clinic, while a separate drug – misoprostol – is administered by the patient themselves within 48 hours at home, causing a miscarriage.
In its coverage of the death yesterday, The Australian reported that MSIA has supervised 18,000 medical abortions in Australia since 2009.
LifeSiteNews.com was unable to obtain a copy of the TGA notice.
Dr. Deirdre Little is a doctor from the mid-North Coast of NSW who warned a Senate inquiry in 2005 of the complications that can arise from RU486.
“This drug is not as safe as it is touted to be, it needs a lot more supervision than is usually available, particularly in rural areas; and it is a drug with some unpleasant side effects as well as complications,” she said.
Explaining why medical abortions can cause infections, she said: “The drug will cause fetal demise, but the baby may not come away straight away, and the placenta may not come away completely. So you can end up with tissue in the uterus that is a good medium for bacteria growing, that the uterus hasn’t expelled. So you’ve got a uterine surface that is prone to infection, and then that gets into the bloodstream causing septicemia.”
Dr. Caroline de Costa, a Queensland obstetrician who has been an outspoken campaigner for wider RU486 availability in Australia, told ABC Radio that she now fears a backlash against the drug.
“I think we have to be very clear that if we’re going to continue using the drug for early medical abortion and using it at home, then services have very, very good mechanisms in place for looking after women once they actually leave the clinic,” she said.
A study in South Australia last year recorded 231 instances of women ending up in emergency departments following complications arising from medical abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Yesterday’s news comes only a few months after a forty-two year old woman in Melbourne died after visiting an abortion clinic.
Marie Stopes International Australia would charge $450 for a medical abortion from their clinic in the Sydney CBD, although this price could vary depending on individual circumstances.
Cross posted from LifeSiteNews.
For a more extensive look at RU486 (also known as Mifepristone/Mifegyne) click here to visit our last post on the topic.
Late last night the Women’s National Abortion Action Campaign (WONAAC), a NZ pro-abortion lobby group, issued a press release expressing great angst about the fact that the NZ Family Planning Association (NZ FPA) didn’t get permission from the Abortion Supervisory Committee (ASC) to start carrying out RU-486 chemical abortions on women in NZ.
Here’s a segment of the press release…
“The Committee should have told the public immediately as this withdrawal suggests the clinic could not comply with legal conditions. Instead the Committee gave the impression in its Annual Report it wanted earlier medical abortions to be more widely available. What on earth is going on?”
Hold on a minute WONAAC, surely it’s not the job of the ASC to announce to the public that a party, who voluntarily applied to them seeking an abortion license, has subsequently withdrawn from the application process.
If you must be angry at anyone, then how about getting angry at the NZ FPA for not announcing their withdrawal?
Besides, aren’t you pro-abortion groups actually talking to each other?
Shouldn’t you have known about this before the news broke in the public arena?
After all, you have been a public supporter of this license application?
Maybe the NZ FPA was trying to tactically hide their withdrawal from the public, you know, trying to save face and all that.
Earlier today Right to Life alerted the online community to the fact that the NZ Family Planning Association (NZ FPA) had withdrawn its application for an abortion licence from the Abortion Supervisory Committee (ASC).
They wanted the licence in order to carry out chemical abortions from their Hamilton clinics using the RU-486 abortion drugs (this was going to be a trial that would pave the way for offering chemical abortions nationwide from their clinics).
I have just spoken to Ken Orr and I can now provide some extra details that, until this point, haven’t been available anywhere else.
Last night Ken was rung by the acting Secretary of the ASC, Rachel Coles, who, according to Ken, had been told to notify him that the ASC had received a letter from the NZ FPA announcing that they were officially withdrawing their application for an abortion licence.
This is excellent news, but it is not the end of this saga.
You see, according to a letter (that was obtained under the Official Information Act by Ken) which was sent from the NZ FPA to the ASC, and which was dated 9 September 2010, it seems that the ASC had stipulated that the NZ FPA had to enter into a ‘draft contract’ with the Waikato DHB before it would grant an abortion licence to them.
Here’s what the relevant section of the letter states (remember, this letter is from the NZ FPA, who are writing to the ASC):
“I am writing to you to reconsider your stipulation that Family Planning has a draft contract with the Waikato District Health Board prior to being eligible for a limited licence.
In discussion with the Family Planning lawyer re our licence application and the need to have a contract for service to acquire the licence, there is nothing in the Act that states that this is a requirement.
We are planning to begin with offering a fee paying service to the women of Hamilton. We will be working towards having a contract with the DHB. However the timing and process for obtaining a contract is complicated and being able to offer a fee paying service initially will allow us to begin to provide the service.”
Why is this important?
Well, if I was a betting man, my money would be on the fact that the NZ FPA has only temporarily withdrawn their application for an abortion licence, and that once they can secure a draft contradict with the Waikato DHB they will definitely resubmit another application.
Just consider this statement from the NZ FPA letter:
“We will be working towards having a contract with the DHB.”
This clearly indicates that (unless they were lying to the ASC) they already have plans in place to obtain a contract with the Waikato DHB, and that it is only a matter of time before that contract is secured.
This issue is definitely not over, and you can be sure that it is something that will be back on the radar at a future date.
As a side note, I would also dare to suggest that the reason the ASC is asking for a contract with the Waikato DHB is because they know that it will be far easier, from a PR perspective, to sell the NZ public on the fact that they have granted a license to an official DHB partner organisation, then it would be to try and sell the NZ public on the fact that they have granted a licence to an independent organization that tends to attract controversy, and which provides only sexual/lifestyle services (which doesn’t look as responsible to Joe Public).
Either way, this is definitely an issue to keep an eye on.
The Eliot Institute has published a fully referenced special report on RU-486 that is well worth a read…
In addition to the 7 American women (13 internationally) who have died after taking RU-486, FDA reports show that as of 2006: 116 women needed blood transfusions, 232 women required hospitalization, and 1,024 women reported adverse events.6 Since there is no mandatory reporting of RU-486 complications to the FDA, and because of the distinct possibility that a deadly infection may not be traced back to the use of RU-486, there is no telling how many other women have suffered serious complications or death from these chemical abortions.
A more recent study from Finland indicates that when using the abortion pill, 20 percent of women suffered at least one significant side effect. Of those studied, hemorrhaging occurred in 15.6 percent of cases, infection in 1.7 percent, and incomplete abortions in 6.7 percent. Compared to surgical abortion, the risk of hemorrhage was almost eight times higher and the risk of an incomplete abortion was five times higher.7 Other research suggests that the drug suppresses the immune system, leaving the woman more susceptible to infection.
There are primarily two ways the RU-486 regimen can cause a woman’s death. The first is an incomplete abortion, where parts of the baby remain inside the woman’s uterus. As a result, the woman can bleed to death or she can develop a deadly blood infection and die of septic shock.
The second most likely cause of death is a ruptured tubal pregnancy. Since RU-486 cannot abort a tubal pregnancy, ruling out that possibility is best done by ultrasound. Surprisingly, the FDA protocol does not require an ultrasound. As a result, the FDA reports at least 17 cases where women with tubal pregnancies took the drug, with potentially fatal consequences.
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