Mifepristone, also known as RU-486 or the French abortion pill. Mifepristone was first developed as an early-abortion drug in France in 1988, under the name RU-486. After years of controversy, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has has now approved the drug for use in the U.S. Mifepristone comes in a pill form and it is used as an abortion method for the earliest days of pregnancy.

How many abortions are caused by the Pill? This is difficult to determine. The answer depends on how often the Pill fails to prevent ovulation, and how often when ovulation fails and pregnancy occurs, the third mechanism prevents a fertilized egg from implanting. Randy Alcorn posed the question to Dr. Harry Kraus, a physician and writer of popular novels with medical themes.

No. ECPs prevent pregnancy. Mifeprex ends an established pregnancy. ECPs do no work if there is an established pregnancy and they will not harm the fetus.

No. The "morning after" pill is designed to prevent pregnancy by preventing ovulation like oral contraceptive pills do, or by changing the lining of the uterus so a fertilized egg cannot attach. It does not terminate a pregnancy.

No. The morning after pill is a form of emergency contraception, so it works to prevent a pregnancy from occurring. An abortion is a way of ending a pregnancy that is already established. This means that if a woman took emergency contraception after becoming pregnant, it would not be effective.

In essence, the Pill works by tricking the body into thinking it's already pregnant. It does this by manipulating the normal hormonal feedback system. The end result is that the body doesn't release the hormones necessary to stimulate the ovary to release an egg. a back-up, every other facet of the woman's reproductive system is also altered.

No, RU-486 (the abortion pill, Mifiprex) is completely different. Plan B does not cause an abortion. Plan B prevents pregnancy and will not work if a woman is already pregnant. Similar to other oral contraceptives, Plan B works by preventing ovulation or fertilization; it may also inhibit implantation. Once implantation begins, Plan B is not effective.

The morning-after pill, or "Emergency Contraception", can be taken within 120 hours after intercourse to help prevent pregnancy. Emergency Contraception will not cause an abortion. The abortion pill, or "Mifeprex", can be taken once it is determined that you are pregnant and want to end the pregnancy. In general, pregnancy is risky. Early abortion is actually 10 times safer than childbirth and is recognized as being one of the safest of all medical procedures.

The morning-after pill is actually a medication taken after unprotected sex in order to prevent pregnancy. It is usually sold under the brand name Plan B. Sometimes, Plan B is referred to as an “abortion pill,” but this is incorrect. Plan B can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, but it works the same way that normal birth control pills work.

Circumcision cannot be compared to abortion. Every person is endowed with basic rights that are recognized under international human rights treaties, simply by virtue of their birth. ["All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Article 1 - Universal Declaration of Human Rights] Under these treaties, the "rights" of an unborn fetus are not addressed.

There are few women who would not be considered good candidates for the Pill. Patients who should not use combination pills under any condition are smokers older than the age of 35, those with a history of spontaneous estrogen-induced blood clotting, those with an estrogen-dependent malignancy, and those who are already pregnant.

Probably minor. Breakthrough bleeding is not uncommon on pills. It can be from missing a pill or two or taking them at different times in the day, but it also occurs for no reason at all. My rule-of-thumb is to change the brand of the pill if it happens 3 cycles in a row.

Yes, abortion has possible risks to your body. You need to know these risks. Women have even died due to their abortions.

The most common side effects reported by women following use of EC include nausea and vomiting. Breast tenderness, fatigue, irregular bleeding, abdominal pain, headaches, and dizziness may also occur. Side effects are far less common using progestin-only EC than combination hormone EC (Van Look & Stewart, 1998).

No. Plan B® is not RU-486 (the abortion pill). It is an emergency contraceptive (EC) that helps prevent an unplanned pregnancy after contraceptive failure, unprotected sex, or sexual assault. RU-486 (mifepristone) has anti-progesterone activity and may be used to induce a medical abortion up to 49 days gestation in pregnant women. Plan B® will not affect an existing pregnancy.

No. Basically pills cover up whatever your body would have done over the time you took them, but they don't alter what your natural history is. For example, if you take pills from age 20 to 35 and then stop, your chances of getting pregnant are the same as any 35 year old who just started trying. At 35 it may be slightly more difficult to get pregnant but the pills don't cause it; age or other intervening disease or circumstances does.

No. There is no evidence that the use of oral contraceptives causes harm to the fetus, when taken unintentionally during early pregnancy. In the past, a few studies had reported that oral contraceptives might be associated with birth defects, but these findings were inconclusive and have not been seen in more recent studies.

There is no evidence that birth control pills cause POF. If you look at a very large group of women and examine the reasons for loss of periods whether they were on the pill or just came off the pill, the percentages of women with each of the possible disorders is identical regardless of pill use. They have the same sorts of problems in the same sorts of percentages as women who never took pills, including disorders like POF.

Oral contraceptives have been on the market for more than 35 years and are the most popular form of reversible birth control in the United States. The "pill" allows greater sexual spontaneity with a high rate of effectiveness, and has played a major role in the sexual freedom of women. This form of birth control suppresses ovulation (the monthly release of an egg from the ovaries) by the combined actions of the hormones estrogen and progestin.

HIV destroys a certain kind of blood cell (CD4+ T cells) which is crucial to the normal function of the human immune system. In fact, loss of these cells in people with HIV is an extremely powerful predictor of the development of AIDS. Studies of thousands of people have revealed that most people infected with HIV carry the virus for years before enough damage is done to the immune system for AIDS to develop.

Alcohol in the mother's blood crosses the placenta freely and enters the embryo or fetus through the umbilical cord. The exact mechanism(s) by which alcohol damages the fetus and critical times of exposure are not known; however, exposure during the first trimester results in the structural defects (i.e., facial changes) characteristic of FAS, whereas the growth and CNS disturbances could occur from alcohol use during any time in pregnancy.

A large study of over 70,000 children, designed specifically to assess a risk of intussusception similar to what was found for the previous rotavirus vaccine, was conducted before licensure of RotaTeq®. In that study, there was no association found between the vaccine and an increased risk of intussusception. While these safety data from the clinical trials are reassuring, the safety of RotaTeq™ will be monitored closely post licensure as larger numbers of infants are vaccinated.

Most people only get gastritis, that means an irritated stomach lining, with no pain or other symptoms. A few people who have the infection get stomach or duodenal ulcers. (The duodenum is the part just after the stomach, just before the regular small intestine begins.) A very small minority (less than one percent) of infected people get stomach cancer. Helicobacter pylori was the first bacterium to be officially recognized as a cancer-causing agent.