Has the Abortion Pill been Pushed on America?
By David Brody
Capitol Hill Correspondent

CBN.com – WASHINGTON – Did the Clinton administration cross ethical lines in pushing for the approval of the RU-486 abortion pill?

Confidential memos uncovered by the watchdog group, Judicial Watch, show President Clinton and his staff took unprecedented steps to get the drug on the American market. Since its approval, the drug has been linked to the deaths of a number of women.

So far, it’s been on the market for six years. Now, doctors, relatives, and members of Congress want it banned after five questionable deaths and hundreds of injuries. All along, conservative groups have claimed short cuts in the approval process, and that the abortion pill was rushed onto the market.

"We've always been incredibly concerned about the way this drug was approved,” said Lanier Swann of Concerned Women for America. “It was put on the fast track, and that's actually putting it mildly."

The group Judicial Watch went straight to the source, obtaining more than 100 documents from the Clinton Presidential Library. What they found suggests Clinton himself helped get this drug into the hands of women here in America.

"You can read the documents for yourself. What they say flat out is that this is the equivalent of a pro-abortion jihad to bring this about,” Judicial Watch’s Christopher Farrell said.

RU-486 was developed in France, but the memos suggest the Clinton administration wanted it so badly in the U.S. that in his first official act as president, he sent a memo to his Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala saying this: "I direct that you promptly assess initiatives by which the department... can promote the testing, licensing, and manufacturing in the United States of RU-486."

"President Clinton put this pill on the fast track for approval to appease the abortion lobby," Swann added.

The drug's manufacturer and parent company had reservations about bringing RU-486 here. They didn't want to be held responsible for any financial lawsuits.

One memo shows how HHS Secretary Shalala and the FDA commissioner at the time, David Kessler, played a persuasive role. It said, "Both Dr. Kessler and I have taken steps to persuade Roussel, Uclaf and Hoechst to change their position."

In another memo, it appears Shalala even tried to get the companies governments involved saying, "The French and German governments might be displeased to learn that their companies are not accommodating a request made by the United States government."

"There's been this big lie that RU-486 was not a political decision or wasn't pressured through politically. That's a lie,” Farrell said. "This is not my opinion. These are Clinton administration documents. Read them for yourself."

These documents come a year after a CBN News investigation showed that the majority of members on the advisory committee that approved RU-486 had direct ties to the abortion industry. The FDA chairman at the time, David Kessler told us the committee process was fair.

"Let me assure you there was no agenda other than making sure that the very best science, that the best experts in the country look at the question,” Kessler said.

Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) told us he's always been skeptical.

"You would hope that the FDA Drug approval process would not be a politicized one because people's health is at risk and yet it looks like it was in this case," Brownback said.

This issue is getting minimal traction on Capitol Hill. A bill that would pull RU-486 off the market has been around for years. There have also been several hearings, including one next week. But for the most part, the FDA has resisted calls to pull the drug.

However growing medical evidence is at least forcing the FDA to take another look. Meeting in Atlanta Thursday, they focused in on the deadly infections caused by the pill. Conservative groups hope that hearing will lead to some sort of action. They're not holding their breath.

"The question here has become how many women have to die before it’s enough?" Swann asked.

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