ABORTION PILL WOULD ADD TO WOMEN'S RIGHTS.

Byline: Nancy L. Sasaki Local View

This little pill will change everything. So proclaimed the media about the much-anticipated RU-486, the so-called French abortion pill. Mifepristone, as this miracle pill is known in this country, will change the abortion debate, but it will not end it.

Mifepristone is another option for women seeking to terminate a pregnancy. It's an option that gives women a degree of control over the procedure, in that they choose when to take the doses of medication that induce a miscarriage. It's noninvasive and doesn't require anesthesia. Medical abortions, which use pharmaceuticals rather than surgery, work during the first 49 days of pregnancy and allow women to terminate a pregnancy very early. But most importantly, it allows women the privacy that we previously believed we could expect when deciding whether or when to have children.

As we approach another anniversary of Roe v. Wade (Saturday), the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in this country, it is appalling to note that abortion is, in many ways, more difficult to access than it was 20 years ago.

More than 80 percent of the counties in this country have no abortion provider and fully two-thirds of the providers are past retirement age. So Mifepristone offers new hope to those of us who have fought so hard for the right to abortion. A few years ago a Kaiser Family Foundation survey indicated that half of the obstetrician-gynecologists practicing in this country are likely to offer Mifepristone if it is approved, even if they don't offer surgical abortions.

The implications for this, of course, are astounding. Mifepristone offers the promise that women will not have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion. That they will be able to undergo this procedure without going to other towns or other states, but instead can stay at home. That the cost of an abortion will not be compounded by travel expenses and lost time at work.

But Mifepristone will not change minds. It will not stop elected officials who would deny women the right to live as they chose from onerous public policies such as the House of Representatives' recent vote to prohibit the FDA from further testing of Mifepristone. This marked the first time in history that federal elected officials attempted to impede the testing of pharmaceuticals.

Availability of Mifepristone will not stop zealots from their constant struggle to make sure all pregnancies are carried to term, regardless of the circumstances of the pregnancy and those that will follow.

And it certainly will not stop terrorists from committing acts of violence against those who provide abortions, medical or surgical.

Mifepristone is an important development in women's health care. It's an alternative to surgical abortion that many women find preferable. It's a chance for supporters of abortion rights to regain some of the ground lost to a lack of access since we all know that a right is without meaning if it can't be exercised. But the purpose of Mifepristone is to terminate a pregnancy and some people will never allow that women should have that basic fundamental liberty.

If the FDA finally approves Mifepristone for use in this country, as is widely anticipated in the next few months, it will be an exciting development in an area of medicine where little research has provided few innovations over the years. And yet, like everything else that surrounds the abortion debate, it will be a hard-fought victory that will require constant vigilance to maintain.

During his administration, former President Bush placed a special ban on the importation of Mifepristone that was ultimately lifted by President Clinton. Had the Senate voted with the House last year, the FDA's clinical trials of Mifepristone would have been halted. And at a time when pharmaceutical companies shy away from producing birth control pills, a manufacturer for Mifepristone has been elusive.

In France, Mifepristone is considered ``the moral property of women.'' But here, in the United States, it is still subject to the morals and consciences of people who are not facing unintended pregnancies and are not the doctors or family members of those women.