NOW views the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of mifepristone as a major breakthrough for women's health. U.S. women have waited years for this safe, effective and private alternative to surgical abortion and its promise of treating diseases from breast cancer to Alzheimer's. However, we must wait for interpretation of the decision to see whether women in this country are able to take full advantage of the drug's potential.

The long-awaited availability of mifepristone in the U.S. means fewer women may have to face a gauntlet of clinic protestors and more physicians may be available to offer care. However, if anti- abortion rights forces, through litigation, legislation or some other attack, manage to force public disclosure of the names of physicians who prescribe mifepristone, this important advantage of the drug will be lost.

The fear of harassment, clinic bombings, shootings and other terrorist tactics has had a measurable effect on the number of doctors willing to provide abortion services. Fewer medical students are opting to learn abortion procedures, and current providers don bullet-proof vests or retire altogether out of concern for their lives and the lives of their staff and families.

Mifepristone also promises other medical applications. These include the treatment of breast and ovarian cancers, endometriosis and fibroid tumors. Both women and men could benefit from its potential effectiveness in treating depression, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer's and Cushing's Syndrome. Almost every major medical and scientific organization supported the approval of mifepristone.

The drug has been successfully administered to more than 600,000 women in Europe and many more in Asia. Seven years ago the FDA released the results of clinical trials that highlighted mifepristone's safety, effectiveness and decreased chance of side effects.

So why did it take so long for the FDA to make it available for public use? One need only look at the battles over abortion rights every day in Congress and in state legislatures, where compromises on women's health are acceptable currency in political barter. The current list of limitations on women's reproductive rights is a long one.

NOW will be watching to see what strategies reproductive rights opponents and political opportunists come up with to block the inherent advantages of mifepristone. With the November elections on the horizon, the ultimate threat to the availability of medical or surgical abortions remains who makes the next appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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