Recently introduced Republican legislation would further tighten restrictions on the abortion pill RU-486, which gives women a non-surgical option to end early-term pregnancies. This legislation would severely increase the difficulty of obtaining RU-486, also called mifepristone, by mandating that entirely unnecessary regulations be placed on physicians prescribing the drug.

When approving the drug for use, the Food and Drug Administration placed stringent regulations on the availability of the drug regulations unprecedented for the FDA. The FDA recognized the dangerous complications that a woman using RU-486 could be subjected to and responded by placing very specific control measures on the drug. Prescriptions are only available through a series of three appointments and any physician prescribing the drug must be able to perform a surgical abortion or be able to refer patients to a facility capable of performing such procedures. Furthermore, it can only be administered in a clinic, doctor"s office or hospital and there must be available facilities for transfusion or resuscitation, if necessary. Such regulation from the FDA is unique to RU-486, leaving anti-abortionists hard-pressed to prove any overuse or misuse of the drug.

Members of Congress who oppose abortions are also suggesting that RU-486 was only approved because of political pressure without proper medical precautions. Such contentions are in stark contrast to the actual medical and statistical evidence that has been gathered. Approval of RU-486 came only after extensive clinical studies in the United States and France, where it has been legal since 1988. In a comparison of trials in both countries, the success rate for a complete medical abortion was 92.1 percent in the U.S. and 95.5 percent in France. In the cases where the abortion was not complete and the woman did not have a surgical abortion, no apparent abnormalities were found at birth.

The evidence proving the relative safety of RU-486 is overwhelming, proving that the only issues with the drug are moral ones. While members of Congress may find abortion ideologically offensive, feigning medical expertise to restrict one alternative to surgical abortion is underhanded and manipulative. The purpose of the FDA is to make medical decisions based on medical expertise that anti-abortionists may pretend to have, but do not.

Congress has found the FDA to be competent and effective in the past, but in the face of moral intervention into political debates, they seem compelled to impose their beliefs on United States citizens.

Introduced under the guise of concern about women"s health, this bill is actually a masked step toward banning abortion. Realizing that a blatant assault on abortion rights would prove fruitless and politically damaging, Congressional Republicans are hoping to quietly restrict a woman"s right to choose. Rationality, instead of personal dogma, must guide Congress to recognize that its ability to make sound medical judgments is inadequate, and that the FDA should have the final word on this issue.