Bill to Pull Abortion Pill Introduced in Congress.

Less than two months after the death of a San Francisco-area teen who took RU486, several members of Congress, led by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), Rep. Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), have introduced bills to suspend the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the abortion bill and investigate the process by which the drug was approved during the Clinton Administration.

The "RU-486 Suspension and Review Act of 2003" (H.R. 3453) was introduced in the House on November 6, by Bartlett and DeMint. As of December 6, it had 68 additional House sponsors. The measure would withdraw the drug's approval, and directs the Comptroller General to review whether the 2000 approval was done in accordance with regulations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act which govern such approvals.

A very similar bill (S. 1930) was introduced in the Senate by Brownback and seven co-sponsors on November 21.

National Right to Life has endorsed the bill.

A number of questions have been raised about the propriety of the Clinton Administration approval of RU486. Many believe the original Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel reviewing the application, stacked with abortion supporters, cut too many regulatory corners and ignored legitimate safety concerns.

In its "Finding" section, the bill declares, "The Congress finds that the use of the drug mifepristone (marketed as Mifeprex, and commonly known as RU-486) in conjunction with the off-label use of [the prostaglandin] misoprostol to chemically induce abortion, has caused a significant number of deaths, near deaths, and adverse reactions."

Some information about the tribulations and tragedies associated with the use of RU486 had trickled out in reports issued by Danco, the pill's U.S. sponsor and distributor. However, the national media did not pay much attention to the pill's medical problems until the terrible details surrounding the death of 18-year-old Holly Patterson became known in September.