Medical abortion is a non-surgical method
of early abortion. The two methods of medical abortion
currently used in some countries are mifepristone
(RU 486), and methotrexate.
Mifepristone (formerly known as RU 486)
is a safe, effective, non-surgical form of early abortion
which is now available in several countries, including
France, Great Britain, Sweden and, as of September 28,
2000, the United States. Mifepristone blocks the action
of progesterone, a hormone necessary to sustain pregnancy.
Mifepristone is used in combination with a prostaglandin
called misoprostol. Mifepristone has already been successfully
used by millions of women worldwide as a method of
early abortion, and may be a possible treatment for
fibroid tumors, ovarian cancer, endometriosis, meningioma,
and some types of breast cancer.
Methotrexate, also used in combination
with misopristol, terminates a pregnancy by inhibiting
the production of folic acid. Methotrexate is currently
the only method of medical abortion that effectively
terminates ectopic pregnancy.
The Campaign for RU 486
and Contraceptive Research is a project
of the Feminist Majority Foundation that fought to bring
this method of early abortion and possible terminal
disease treatment to the United States. Developed by
Roussel Uclaf and available in France since 1988, this
medical breakthrough until recently had been withheld
from American women by anti-abortion politics. In 1994,
the U.S. patent rights were turned over to the Population
Council, a New York-based scientific research organization.
For the past 12 years, the Feminist Majority Foundation
waged a highly publicized nationwide, public education
campaign -- the Campaign for RU 486 and Contraceptive
Research -- to bring RU 486 to the United States and
to expand women's health care research. Our campaign
included the delivery of over 700,000 petitions to RU
486 manufacturers and the U.S. government, and the mobilization
of scientific and feminist support for RU 486. Mifepristone
was approved by the FDA on September 28, and will
be marketed by Danco
Laboratories under the trade name Mifeprex.
For more background on the struggle to bring RU 486
to the United States, see "Blue Smoke, Mirrors, and
Mediators: The Symbolic Contest over RU 486," an article
by Feminist Majority Foundation Director of Policy and
Research Jennifer Jackman, in Cultural
Strategies of Agenda Denial : Avoidance, Attack, and
Redefinition, University of Kansas Press, 1997.
