Reaction Split on RU-486 Ruling

Sept. 29, 2000 -- Democratic and Republican political leaders had widely divergent reactions to the Food and Drug Administration’s decision Thursday to make mifepristone, the RU-486 abortion pill, available for commercial use.

“I am pleased with the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to approve mifepristone,” said Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, in a statement released to reporters.

Gore noted the FDA had determined RU-486 to be “safe and effective,” and added, “Today’s decision is not about politics, but the health and safety of American women and a woman’s fundamental right to choose.”

But Gore’s Republican rival, George W. Bush, indicated disapproval of the ruling.

“I think the FDA’s decision to approve the abortion pill RU-486 is wrong,” said Bush in a statement released by his campaign. “People on both sides of the abortion issue can agree that we should do everything we can to reduce the number of abortions, and I fear that making this abortion pill widespread will make abortions more and more common, rather than more and more rare.”

Gore favors abortion rights, while Bush has long opposed them, except for cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s life is in jeopardy. The GOP nominee has also voiced support for a ban on late-term abortions.

Congress and White House Weigh In

On Capitol Hill, Republican leaders denounced the FDA’s decision to legalize the pill in stronger terms. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, targeted the Clinton administration for the move.

“The president said he wanted to make abortion ‘legal, safe, and rare,’” DeLay told reporters on Capitol Hill, citing President Clinton’s familiar refrain on abortion rights. But the ruling, DeLay claimed, would make abortion “convenient” and “unsafe.”

DeLay also called Clinton a “pro-abortion president.”

And Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., the fourth-ranking GOP House leader, expressed confidence that the next administration would be able to overturn the ruling.

But at a White House press briefing, Clinton said his administration had treated the issue strictly in terms of medical safety.

“I think it ought to be treated as the scientific and medicaldecision it was,” added the president. “And we should respect the fact that it was a non-political inquiry.”

And White House spokesman Joe Lockhart voiced his objections to Watts’ comments.

“I think that’s one of the more disturbing things I’ve heard,” Lockhart told reporters at a separate briefing. “To somehow argue that the FDA commissioner should be subject to a political litmus test and not a commitment to science is quite a dangerous thing to say.”

Abortion rights has long been one of the most contentious issues in American politics, with Democrats tending to support abortion rights, but a greater percentage of Republicans opposing or favoring limits on them.

RU-486, which has been available to women in Europe for more than a decade, is expected to reach the United States in commercial form in November, with few restrictions placed on its use. FDA approval was necessary for the product to be put on the market.

Women React

A group of women congressman held a press conference outside the Capitol, applauding the decision.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said the availability of RU-486 means women “will not have to run the gauntlet at abortion clinics” past anti-abortion rights protesters.

Slaughter also said she hoped the decision “will finally make the House take off its white coats and stop practicing medicine without a license.”

And first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic Senate candidate in New York, weighed in with her approval of the FDA ruling.

“This decision will help ensure that women in the United States will have access to a safe and effective option that women in other countries have had for years,” said Mrs. Clinton in a prepared statement. “In the Senate, I will fight hard to protect a woman’s right to choose and ensure that these difficult decisions are kept between a woman and her doctor.”

But former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer, president of the staunchly anti-abortion Family Research Council, lamented the decision, saying it was just the latest step in making abortion a more common procedure.

“It’s sad,” Bauer told ABCNEWS. “I think the trend is clear.”