title: RU-486: the "abortion pill".
abstract: A report sent by the Vatican to bishops' conferences throughout the world calls RU-486, the so-called abortion pill currently available in France, "a new, serious threat to human life." The report was developed at the Vatican's request by Gonzalo Herranz, a Spanish bioethicist. A cover letter to bishops' conferences from Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, suggested that the report be used "to resist the introduction of the abortion pill RU-486 into your country." Related to TU-486 and to new terminology some use to characterize its non-surgical approach to abortion is an intention "to amoralize and thereby place the transmission of human life into an ethically neutral terrain and reduce it to pure biology," says the report. The report discusses possible future uses of RU-486 as a contraceptive, stating: "Women would no longer have to worry themselves about whether they have conceived or not. Each month they would proceed to clean out their uterus chemically." The report refers to RU-486 as "a technical step forward in an area that did not need it." It says, "The abortion pill favors a woman's privacy and secret, but it condemns her to solitude." The English text from the Vatican follows.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Herranz
mesh_terms: D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000941:ethics*; D002410:Catholicism; D003267:Contraception; D019049:Developed Countries; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015735:Mifepristone / Q000009:adverse effects; D011155:Population Control; D011247:Pregnancy; D018907:Privacy; D011459:Prostaglandins E, Synthetic; D046269:Reproductive Rights
chemical_list: D011459:Prostaglandins E, Synthetic; D015735:Mifepristone