On Wednesday the New England Journal of Medicine published a study examining the effect of the abortifacient, RU-486, on women's chances of later having tubal (ectopic) pregnancies or miscarriages. The analysis relied on Denmark's 35-year-old national abortion registry. The results were released to Time, the Associated Press, and Reuters, which splashed grossly misleading headlines like: "Study Finds Abortion Pill Safe" (Time).
Actually, the researchers concluded only that there was the same risk to women and child of future miscarriages if they had used RU-486 or had a surgical abortion. The new study is problematic because it did not examine other, short-term risks, and it did not compare RU-486 and surgical abortion patients to women with no abortion history. Thus, this study says nothing about future pregnancy outcomes for RU-486 patients versus women who never have abortions - a true measure of longer-term RU-486 safety.
The authors, including an NIH scientist, laid down the following unbelievable spin to explain the omission: "....women who have never had an abortion tend to have a different pattern of income, smoking rates and other health-related behaviors that would make a comparison difficult...." Riiiiiight. More likely--but not politically correct--is that women who have abortions have a higher risk of future negative pregnancy outcomes. HHS Secretary Leavitt needs to look into having this study re-done using proper methodology and unbiased scientists.
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