Radical Anti-Abortion Doctor Takes Predictable Stand on RU-486

by Lisa Bennett, Communications Director

This week Dr. W. David Hager, a member of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, endorsed a new review of mifepristone (RU-486), the pill used in medical abortions, despite the fact that it was approved after extensive clinical trials. Last month—just one day after George W. Bush signed into law the ban on so-called partial birth abortion—three Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a law to halt the use of the drug.

Dr. Hager's opposition to mifepristone comes as little surprise to the National Organization for Women.

In October 2002, NOW and the NOW Foundation—along with women's rights and health advocates both inside and outside Congress and within the medical community—protested the Bush administration's nomination of Hager to the FDA committee.

Bush's buddies at the Department of Health and Human Services made Dr. Hager's seat on the committee official on Dec. 24, 2002, hoping it would attract little attention during the holidays.

NOW and others objected to Hager's appointment because of his vehement anti-abortion stance and his membership in the Physicians Resource Council, part of the radical right group Focus on the Family. Hager had spoken out against emergency contraception, as well as the use of birth control pills and condoms outside of marriage. Hager authored books and articles encouraging women to turn to prayer and scripture to help heal ailments such as premenstrual syndrome, postpartum depression and eating disorders.

Hager's appointment also represented a serious conflict of interest. The Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee is the same committee whose recommendation prompted the FDA's long-awaited approval of mifepristone. At the time of his appointment, Hager was leading a campaign petitioning the FDA to ban mifepristone. The petition was filed by The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, The Christian Medical Association and Concerned Women for America, and Hager continues to support their efforts.

Mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000, and has been taken by over 200,000 women in the United States since then. Although three women have died after taking the drug, the FDA maintains that none of the deaths are directly linked to mifepristone. That didn't stop lawmakers, however, from naming their recently introduced bill "Holly's Law," after Holly Patterson, the California teen who died a week after an abortion induced by taking mifepristone.

Mifepristone is safely used in 29 countries around the world, and only became available in the U.S. after years of political obstruction by right-wing forces. With Bush appointee Dr. Hager standing firmly in their corner, anti-abortion legislators may be calling for a vote on "Holly's Law" sooner than predicted.