Letters
Social determinants of health Women's health
Volume 184 - Issue 11

Mifepristone (RU-486) and limits to abortion

Author:  David van Gend

Med J Aust 2006; 184 (11): 590.
Published online: 5 June 2006
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In reply: Belton is correct that “safety and efficacy of medications” is a matter for the Therapeutic Goods Association. The dispute was whether such limited criteria can meaningfully assess a drug designed to take life.

The government needed to consider higher criteria for RU-486 — its ethical and medical justifiability. Doctors needed to advise the government on justifiable indications for RU-486, in contrast to the corrupt practice of abortion for non-medical reasons.

That advice was withheld. The Australian Medical Association advised only on the ethically neutral question of “. . . who is best qualified to scientifically assess the safety and efficacy of a drug”.1

Such marginalisation of ethical concerns is consistent with the AMA’s earlier response in the context of late-term abortion: “There is no place for third parties — governments, over-zealous politicians and lawyers, hospital committees, or even the spectre of legal action”.2

This assertion of unchallengeable medical power over an unborn life is wrong. Belton’s notion that the morality of abortion is “a private matter” is wrong; neither parents nor doctors are above the moral and legal prohibition on intentional killing. “The law in this state has not abdicated its responsibility as guardian of the silent innocence of the unborn”,3 even if medical leaders have.

Author

  • David van Gend1
  • 1. World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life, Toowoomba, QLD.

Correspondence: vangend@machousemedical.com.au

References