Bill Challenges Ruling on Abortion Pill

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) on Monday introduced a bill to permit a pregnant woman to take a French abortion drug banned by the Food and Drug Administration.

On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld an appeals court decision that the government had the right to confiscate the abortion drug RU486 when Leona Benten, 29, brought it in from Britain on July 1 for her personal use.

Schroeder’s bill opens a new front in the battle over abortion between majority congressional Democrats and President Bush, an outspoken opponent of terminating pregnancies.

The bill would require the government to return the drug to Benten, who had bought the drug in Britain, where it is legal.

Benten, nearly eight weeks’ pregnant, said she needed to take the drug by last Saturday or face a surgical abortion.

Benten lost her Supreme Court bid to get the drug returned, but Schroeder said at a news conference that the surgical abortion had been delayed and Benten might be able to use the drug if she got it back by the end of the week.

“George Bush can pick up the phone and save us from all this, and I think it’s very important to keep pointing that out,” said Schroeder, acknowledging that it would be nearly impossible to pass her proposed law in a few days.

“Otherwise, being able to turn this around in a week is going to be very, very difficult,” she said.

Schroeder and Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the Supreme Court action was wrong.

They said that the drug had been illegally seized and that the FDA responded to political pressure instead of relying on its own criteria.

Schroeder’s bill is narrow in scope, requiring only that the FDA return to Benten the pills it seized from her.

A more general bill by Wyden would rescind a special FDA “import alert” permitting the government to seize the drug at its discretion.

Schroeder and Wyden said the FDA has often granted a personal-use exemption for drugs unless it finds there are safety problems, illegal importation or a black market for a drug.

“There is no evidence of any of those criteria having been met,” Wyden said. “Instead, there is a vast collection of letters from anti-abortion activists.”

An FDA spokesman disagreed and said only drugs for such life-threatening illnesses as cancer and AIDS qualified for the personal exemption.

Wyden disagreed and called the FDA decision “murky.”

A lower court judge backed Wyden’s view, but an appellate court and the Supreme Court upheld the FDA for the time being.

The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, which filed suit on behalf of Benten, intends to pursue its challenge to the FDA in federal court in New York. Another group will pressure the manufacturer, Roussel-Uclaf, to seek a U.S. license for the drug.