Senate Passes RU486 Bill - R U Joking?

Wow. Today I am not a happy chappy. Why is that? Today the Australian Senate has passed the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial Responsibility For Approval of RU486) Bill 2005. What a joke. An absolute joke. The final vote was held at 4:49pm (Canberra time) and the result was 45 - 28 in favour of the bill.

First off, a brief on the Bill itself. The abortificant (the device which terminates the unborn baby's life) RU486 is currently a 'restricted drug' meaning that for it to be utilised in Australia it needs to be cleared with the Minister for Health (Tony Abbott). This Bill will pass the drug onto an independant body - the Therapeutic Drugs Administration (or TGA) for review without the need for Ministerial oversight.

Now lets have a breif on me for a second, so you all know where I stand. I am pro-life and am wholeheartedly against abortions except under special circumstances (e.g. rape). It may sound like I am sitting on the fence here but quite the contrary. I am a proponent of personal reponsibility and rape-induced pregnancies do not fall under personal responsibility. So anyway... back to the topic.

Why is it a problem that the Minister for Health lose his charge of determining whether or not this RU486 drug be allowed? Lots. First of all this drug is no ordinary drug and should not lose its status as a 'restricted drug'. Let us have a look at how horrendus this drug is and the damage that it can potentially cause.

[Note: for much of this I have not provided sources, but i'm sure you can google this information to validate it]

RU486 is one of two drugs used to abort an unborn child. Mifepristone (RU486) and misoprostol are the two drugs in question. RU486's role is to restrict the operation of progesterone - which maintains the nutrient lining of the uterus... effectively the baby's food supply. There is problem number one. Death via starvation. It is not a quick death, it is a slow and horrendous one. It gets worse - RU486 taken alone (before the second drug is ingested) doesn't always kill the unborn child. OMG! Death occurs only 60-70% of the time.

It doesn't really get that much better when you add drug number two - misoprostol. Misoprostol effectively causes contractions to expel the possibly-dead-but-not-quite-sure unborn child out of the womb. Fair enough, you have to get rid of the body. However, it's not always that easy. Even though most of the time the expulsion occurs within 4 hours, it has been the case where expulsion has occured up to 5 days later! Sigh.

Three, the unborn child isn't the only one that can die. That's right. If taken improperly the pregnant lass can die as well! Have a look at Holly Patterson in the United States for one case. Now, as these drug induced abortions and the human body are both inherently complex things it is difficult to categorically say that RU486 causes deaths directly, but it is entirely possible. Here's how the links can be made. It's not only just the one death, there have been several since the American TGA approved RU486's use of the drug a couple of years ago.

So judging by this it doesn't necessarily look like the safest drug on earth. Perhaps further study is warranted on the drug and its effects, the drug may or may not cause the death of a mother. It is hard to say... but when deaths are possible it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the matter be looked into carefully before it is allowed to be used througout the country. The 'restricted drug' label is warranted given the evidence around and that label should not be dropped whatsoever.

The TGA may be know-hows in the medical field, and that's cool. Maybe they should have a look into the drug and write some reports on it and what not. That's fine. Removing the oversight of the Minister on a dangerous drug altogether is a big no-no, let the reports come in and let the Minister have a read and decide - that's fair. It is a potentially dangerous drug and therefore it should not be treated like a Panadol.

Proponents of the Bill mention that the experts should have a look. Now i'm not against experts having a say, they are the ones best positioned to make reports on these sorts of things. However, there is an important distinction that I have made here... as I have used the word report. When dealing with the safety of the Australian people, the elected government has the obligation to ensure our safety. Experts can say things like "the chance of getting seriously ill is so-and-so percent, and the chance of dying from this is blah percent" better than parliamentarians can, but the parliamentarain's role is decide on whether or not this is an acceptible risk for the public. We elect members of parliament and therefore the buck should stop with the parliamentarians, not some topical experts who have are accountable to nobody.

So there you have it. It is a dispicable drug that doesn't necessarily do it's job well (as in killing the baby outright) and it is questionable as to whether or not it is safe for the pregnant mother. As it is potentially lethal it should remain a 'restricted drug' and should remain under watch by the Minister for Health. I'm not saying that experts shouldn't have input, quite the contrary - they should input as much advice as possible. I'm saying that the decision for the drug to be accessible to mainstream Australia should lie with the Minister after the experts have their say.

It has been said that it is not a pro-life or pro-choice question at all. That's rubbish. Lets have a look at some Parliamentary Research. The paper says the following:

Restricted goods are defined under the Act as medicines ‘intended for use in women as abortifacients’. In other words, restricted goods provisions apply exclusively to medicines intended to induce an abortion. Medicines used for any purpose other than abortion are evaluated and regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) without any requirement for approval from the Minister.

This Bill will pave the way for all medicinal abortifacients to bypass Ministerial Responsibility, thus swinging the pendulum towards the pro-choice camp in a very big way. What is to stop the next baby-killer drug from bypassing the Minister when there is the trump card: RU486 is through, why not this one? Parliamentarians need to think, and think hard on where they stand on the issue of pro-life and pro-choice as well as look at the procedure involved for this drug in particular. It is NOT simply a Bill solely on process.

It saddens me to see the Senate vote the way that they have. Hopefully the House of Representatives defeats the Bill. Furthermore, lets look at another point. Only one application for RU486 has been lodged with the Minister for Health. One. This Bill can also, therefore, be considered a royal waste of time.

Moving on to some related topics. It baffles me as to why abortion is so prevalent and why abortion has so much support. If you don't want a baby, then don't get pregnant. That makes perfect sense to me. We shoudn't even be asking the pro-life or pro-choice question at all! I can understand that this is not such a simple thing in developing and third-world countries, but we live in Australia. Contraceptions are widely available AND it is a hell of a lot cheaper than abortions. Alas, this is another topic which will have to be dealt with another day.

Massive post today - I guess it shows my disappointment.