Abortion Foes Want RU-486 Pill Pulled
Deaths of Several Women Are Cited
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Opponents of the abortion pill RU-486 are mounting a renewed campaign to force the Food and Drug Administration to pull the drug from the market, arguing that it has proved to be unexpectedly dangerous to women.

The effort focuses on the deaths in recent years of four to eight young women who had taken the medication, and especially the four deaths that involved a common but rarely fatal bacterium, Clostridium sordelli . A congressional subcommittee has scheduled a hearing today on what it called "the unsafe characteristics of RU-486."

But research into those lethal infections has unearthed new information that makes it less clear that complications from the abortion pill, sold as Mifeprex, caused the deaths. the rest