RU-486 and social ethics

Gonzalo Herranz Rodríguez.
Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Navarra.
article Opinion piece published in El Mundo, 1-XI-98.

The author of article defines himself as opposed to abortion. Once he has stated his position, he offers some serious objections to the RU-486 pill, which come mainly from two fields: medical ethics and a broad sector of feminism.

One thing is clear: RU-486 is a divisive agent, a strong polarizer of opinion. Since it was presented a few years ago as an emblem of reproductive freedom, it has been the subject of heated debate between supporters and detractors. For some, it is a fortunate gift for women, since it allows them to choose how to have an abortion; for others, it is a sophisticated and deadly weapon Chemistry , an anti-personnel mine, designed to destroy innocent lives.

I am civilly opposed to abortion. To contribute to the social discussion on the approval management assistant of the UK in Spain, I will offer some serious objections to the pill, which come, by strange coincidence, from two fields: from medical ethics and from a broad sector of feminism.

Medical ethics - from the Hippocratic Oath to the Declaration of Geneva - imposes the utmost respect for human life, for every human being without discrimination. The rejection of the UK takes on particular force, not because it is simply abortive, but because, in its ideological design , not in its internship, it aims to trivialize abortion, to reduce it to a routine, without psychological dimension or ethical responsibility.

This trivialization of abortion by RU-486 occurs, to begin with, at the biological level. RU, as an anti-hormone, distorts the molecular language that is necessary to maintain pregnancy, gradually but very precisely separates the embryo from the mother and kills it, slowly and inexorably, over the course of one or two days. Once the embryo is dead, its remains are eliminated thanks to the effect of a prostaglandin. The act of abortion itself is not very different from a menstrual period that is somewhat heavier and more annoying than normal.

From the human point of view, we are faced with a more prosaic and vulgar variant of abortion, lacking the drama and tension of surgical abortion, which aims to turn this human drama into something irrelevant, something similar to dealing with a vermifuge, an intestinal parasite: everything consists of ingesting a preparation and waiting for its effects.

The UK is designed to do just that: to de-dramatize abortion, to whitewash it, so that we all forget about it, so that no one feels remorse for the life begotten and selectively destroyed.

Moreover, the promoters of pharmacological abortion tell us that things are just beginning and that it will not be long before the time will come when sexuality and procreation can be definitively separated, since a pill taken regularly will dislodge from the uterus any unwanted embryo that might occupy it. And, this is the essential thing, without anyone being aware of the fact. Embryos will not even enter into that minimal category of victims that are the disappeared, since they will simply be ignored. The demolishing aspect of RU-486 consists in deproblematizing abortion affectively and rationally, in extinguishing the little that is still human, linked to the inevitable trauma of feeling that the creature is being sucked out or reduced to fragments. The fact that abortion continues to be a problem is a social good and staff. There is no room here for a peace process. It is preferable to recognize human weaknesses in the open and to live in agony and moral precariousness, rather than to settle comfortably in a society that ignores that it lives in the agreed lie and that, in order to eliminate sin, does not hesitate to place on what is perverse the label of good and advanced.

Pro-lifers are not alone in the civil service examination to the UK. A broad sector of feminism has attacked the abortion pill with the mixture of lucidity and courage that is typical of it. All the arguments used to promote the UK as a miracle drug have been dismantled by these women. They say, and they are not wrong, that RU is a fiasco: it turns out that what was to be a demedicalized abortion, do-it-yourself abortion, requires greater medical supervision; it turns out that the promise of private abortion at home requires three or four visits to an authorized official center, with their sometimes long waits; it turns out that what is advertised as free abortion involves swallowing pills in front of witnesses, and undergoing vaginal ultrasounds for control, and spending 48 hours with abdominal pain and, sometimes, bleeding more than desirable. To top it all off, they find that what was supposed to be cheaper turns out to be more expensive. In addition, RU abortion, with its heavy technological burden and its not inconsiderable rate of complications, is dangerous for the life and health of many women. In conclusion, and very feministically, they tell men to swallow the pill, because Baulieu has just discovered that RU damages the sperm membrane and could reduce male fertility.

To make my position clear, I must say that I am not opposed, nor could anyone in their right mind, to the clinical applications that RU can have in the treatment of a small issue of real diseases. I can, therefore, understand that the General Administration of Pharmacy is studying the possibility of licensing the restricted use of RU in Spain, for which there are alternative, fast and efficient systems of controlled importation. What I cannot understand is that the Government, at a time when it is trying to contain the pharmaceutical expense by eliminating from the lists of drugs those of leave therapeutic usefulness, authorizes a drug that is so loaded with biological disadvantages and social conflict.

The RU-486 -no evil for the best- should be like a flag of fire on the nose of our pluralistic society of today. Some can, very postmodernly, attend undaunted by the destruction of many human lives, as significant and valuable as their own. Others think that the world is in need of rebels, of people who will put their finger on the sore of abortion, of people who will try to prevent the dangerous medicine RU-486 from being made available to certain children.