What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Bush's Worst Appointment
Yet?
Read Jeffrey
St Clair's blazing expose of the new Interior Secretary nominee
, Dirk Kempthorne, and make up your own mind. Even in the dingy
history of Idaho's predators, Kempthorne stood proud as the dingiest
of them all. Now he's poised to seize his place in history. Will
he be the sleaziest Interior Secretary in history, sleazier than
Watt, fouler than Fall?
More on the great Israel Lobby debate! Norman Finkelstein cuts
a new path, asks "Are the Neo-Cons really committed Zionists?" "Bliss was it
in that dawn" Not in Michigan! Raymond Garcia describes
Dem governor's appalling plan to scapegoat youth and teachers. Plus the full print version of Virginia
Tilley's savage dissection on this website of the double-standard
onslaught on Hamas by the US and EU. CounterPunch Online is read by millions
of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely
by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
The deaths of 6 women who used RU 486,
the non-surgical abortion drug also known as mifespristone, is
creating the usual cacophony of voices demanding that the drug
be taken off the market, even though the link between the drug
and the deaths is not clear. While a drug that causes adverse
reactions should certainly be investigated, but the reality is
that the reaction to these deaths has a lot more to do with politics
than the drug's safety.
There is not one drug in any
medicine cabinet in America that does not contain a list of possible
adverse side effects. However RU 486 has been taken by more than
500,000 women since it's approval by the FDA and has been used
worldwide for more than 25 years and has a very low adverse reaction
rate (.0007%). Many popular drugs have a far higher percentage
of adverse reactions, at least 12% for the popular allergy drug
Claritin and at least 5.5% for the acid reflux drug Nexium. Tylenol,
which is considered to be a very safe drug, is linked to 150
fatal liver failures every year.
If those who call themselves
'pro-lifers' were really concerned about women' s lives, they
would be demanding funding to end the unnecessary deaths of more
than 500,000 women every year from the complications of childbirth.
According to UNFPA, 78,000 of those deaths are due to unsafe
abortions. Ending the Global Gag Order (which contributes to
more than 300,000 unwanted pregnancies every year) and restoring
funding for family planning services should also be a top priority
and making condoms easily and widely available would greatly
reduce unwanted pregnancies.
Working to end violence against
women would be another substantive way to save the lives of women.
In this country alone, 1200 women are killed by intimate partners
or family members every year and more than 5000 documented honor
killings occur annually worldwide according to the U.N. Pregnant
women are particularly at risk, with more than 1300 being killed
in the U.S. since 1990. Female Genital Mutilation is another
significant form of violence against women. It is estimated that
200,000 women and girls undergo to the procedure every year,
which damages not only their own health but can lead to very
serious complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
The outcry about RU 486 is
also not about saving the lives of children. 5.6 million children
die each year primarily because of malnutrition and two million
have been killed by war and conflict in the last decade. Hundreds
of thousands of children die every year from preventable diseases,
lack of healthcare and child abuse. Working to end these deaths
would save far more lives than banning RU 486.
But none of this is what really
motivates the outcry against RU 486 or similar efforts to block
access to Plan B, also known as the morning after pill, even
though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
recommends that women have advance prescriptions for it so that
they can obtain it in a timely manner if needed. And there has
been a veritable stampede of states from North Dakota to Mississippi
jockeying to be the state whose abortion ban is the one to overturn
Roe v Wade.
The debate about RU 486 isn't
about the ostensible issue of its safety. Rather it is just another
salvo in the ongoing attempt to deny women the basic human right
of controlling their own bodies and to decide whether and when
they will bear children.
Lucinda Marshall is a feminist artist, writer and activist.
She is the Founder of the Feminist Peace Network, www.feministpeacenetwork.org.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.