RU-4Safety?

(Tony Perkins) Racism, fraud, illegal cover-ups, and manslaughter may sound like an edgy Hollywood script, but at Planned Parenthood, it's all in a day's work. The organization, funded by millions of your hard-earned dollars, has been implicated in the deaths of at least four patients.

In this week's issue of The Journal of Immunology, scientists from the University of Michigan blame the fatalities associated with RU-486 on infections that were caused by "off-label use." In other words, some of the clinics that dispensed the drugs ignored the FDA's instructions and advised women to take the pills vaginally--despite the agency's warning that oral use is much safer. At least eight women have died from bacterial infections after taking RU-486. Four of the eight victims had something in common. They had all visited California's Planned Parenthood clinics that didn't follow FDA protocol for dispensing the pills. It took four fatalities in one week before the nation's largest abortion merchant would consider changing its policy.

Although Planned Parenthood changed its guidelines for dispensing RU-386 in 2006, its defiance of the FDA continues. In addition to altering the suggested dosage, Planned Parenthood urges women to take one of the drugs at home, completely disregarding the FDA's warning that the second portion of the pill regime "should be done in a medical office to monitor women for complications." Planned Parenthood, which claims to have "done more than any other organization in the United States to improve women's health and safety," shrugged off its carelessness back in 2006. "We don't really know all the circumstances surrounding these women's deaths," a spokeswoman said. Now that we do, what can Americans expect Congress to do about it?

Democrats have fully supported investment in Planned Parenthood, despite its abhorrent track record. The clinics' use of RU-486 has been linked to thousands of complications (many of them serious or life-threatening) and four fatalities, yet taxpayers are still forced to provide the resources for Planned Parenthood's medical negligence. Any institution with such a cavalier attitude toward health and safety shouldn't be trusted with women's lives or federal funding.