Morning-After Madness

The Food and Drug Administration is in the process of approving the so-called "abortion pill"--RU-486, also known as mifepristone--but it seems to be moving toward imposing certain strict limitations on its use. These include a national register of doctors authorized to prescribe the drug and requirements that such doctors be trained in surgical abortions and have admitting privileges at a hospital within one hour of their offices. Naturally, the abortion-rights lobby is in high dudgeon about this refusal to make the French drug as universally available as aspirin.

A "morning after" pill has long been the Holy Grail of abortion-rights proponents. Such a drug allegedly would "privatize" abortion and place the issue beyond the realm of public debate. A safe, universally available abortion drug would finally make the procedure, as the pro-abortion forces so tirelessly repeat, strictly a matter to be decided between a woman and her doctor.

As someone who believes in the sanctity of human life in all its stages, from conception to natural death, I oppose all abortion procedures, surgical or pharmaceutical. There are sound practical reasons, however, why RU-486 specifically should not be dispensed willy-nilly, as the radical abortion-rights advocates are demanding.

Twenty-seven years after Roe v. Wade, our country is nowhere near a moral consensus on the issue of abortion. Americans remain deeply divided, with the numbers about equally split between those who regard themselves as pro-life and those who support a woman's right to choose. Roughly half of the American people oppose abortion and regard it as the taking of innocent human life. Our body politic should show a decent respect for the deeply held moral and religious beliefs of these Americans.

With more than 1.3 million abortions being performed each year--and half of those representing women who have had multiple abortions--it cannot be seriously suggested that the procedure is not already readily available. Until something like a moral consensus emerges, making abortion more widespread and easier to obtain would be to deliberately poke a thumb in the eye of those who view this issue with profound moral misgivings. Even some advocates of a woman's so-called "right to choose" desire to reduce the incidence of abortion through sound family planning.

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