The truth of the dangers of RU 486 is being revealed in increasingly horrifying detail. The drug, pushed as a private way of causing an elective abortion, is causing women to die from severe bacterial infections. The cause appears to be the result of a Clostridium sordellii infection feeding on the decaying tissue of the dying baby.

This bacteria does not normally cause infections in the cervical canal, but thrives on this food source aided by the action of the mifepristone which impairs the woman's ability to fight off the infection. This was worsened by instructions from Planned Parenthood to use the drug as a vaginal insert rather than orally as recommended by the FDA. They only changed their recommendation to comply with FDA instructions after several more deaths and the resulting outcry against the drug.

How many women and their babies will die from this drug before it is banned? It is bad enough that women are having procedures that will dismember or chemically scald an infant to death but then have the dead baby removed quickly. Now they are expected to kill the baby slowly over enough time to have the resulting infection kill them, too. The same groups supporting partial-birth abortions, which are obvious infanticides, are also supporting this form of abortion. What an incredible lack of caring for either mother or child!

Other groups are working to educate women about other medical problems linked to abortion. Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, blamed the government's National Cancer Institute (NCI) and breast cancer awareness groups for lying about the abortion-breast cancer link. Research has shown that having an abortion, especially before a woman has carried her first pregnancy to term, increases the breast cancer risk. Part of the changes that take place during a pregnancy is the development of the breast tissue that will allow a woman to produce milk for the baby. When this process is stopped by the abortion, the unfinished changes leave the breasts more susceptible to cancer.

The truth is that abortion is more dangerous for women than carrying the baby to term except for a few real medical causes. The risks are being hidden by underreporting, death certificates that do not state that the official cause of death is from a complication of an abortion, and the deliberate omission of medical information.

Feminists for Life of America have stepped forward to support a bill to provide grants for college and university programs that aid pregnant and parent students. They are a light of sanity in the feminist spectrum, working to end the sexual exploitation of women and children through abortion. This would help college women through pregnancy and delivery, and in the choice to keep the child with support for its care or to give the child up for adoption. It would end the pressure to have an abortion out of fear of having to drop out of school and face a lifetime of poverty.

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Student Services Act, sponsored by pro-life Rep. Melissa Hart, a Pennsylvania Republican, is a step in the right direction to assist women with unplanned pregnancies. It represents what our society should do for all women who cannot manage the situation on her own.

Women must stand up for other women and tell the truth about abortion. The pro-choice groups have told lie after lie to promote their misguided and ill-considered position, but it is women who are reaping the bitter harvest of injury and death along with their unborn children. It isn't needed for the empowerment of women, even in third world countries where it is pushed as needed for both maternal health and population control instead of directing the same funds for improved maternal health care and child health care. Women can defend their civil rights without risking their lives and health and children by abortion.