Planned Parenthood is celebrating the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to authorize expanded use of Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, an abortion pill that can be used to end an unborn baby’s life.

The taxpayer-funded abortion business tweeted the following message upon the FDA’s announcement of its approval of expanded use of the drug:

The FDA has approved a new label for the drug – manufactured as Mifeprex — that relaxes the guidelines for its use, allowing it to be used at a lower dosage for ending pregnancies up to 70 days of gestation, rather than the former 49 days. Mifepristone is used in conjunction with Misoprostol to end the life of the fetus.

The FDA provides the following information in its guidelines about the drug:

What is Mifeprex?

Mifeprex is used in a regimen with another prescription medicine called misoprostol, to end an early pregnancy. Early pregnancy means it is 70 days (10 weeks) or less since your last menstrual period began. Mifeprex is not approved for ending pregnancies that are further along. Mifeprex blocks a hormone needed for your pregnancy to continue. When you use Mifeprex on Day 1, you also need to take another medicine called misoprostol 24 to 48 hours after you take Mifeprex, to cause the pregnancy to be passed from your uterus.

The pregnancy is likely to be passed from your uterus within 2 to 24 hours after taking Mifeprex and misoprostol. When the pregnancy is passed from the uterus, you will have bleeding and cramping that will likely be heavier than your usual period. About 2 to 7 out of 100 women taking Mifeprex will need a surgical procedure because the pregnancy did not completely pass from the uterus or to stop bleeding.

Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino explains in the medical animation video below how mifepristone is used to terminate a pregnancy:

During a medical abortion, a woman takes Mifepristone – which blocks the action of the hormone “progesterone,” which is naturally produced by the mother’s body to enable the baby to thrive during the pregnancy. When progesterone is blocked, the lining of the mother’s uterus deteriorates, causing the baby to be cut off from blood and nourishment. The unborn baby then dies inside the mother’s womb. Within 24 to 48 hours after taking Mifepristone, the mother takes Misoprostol, a drug that causes contractions and bleeding that force the baby to be expelled from the uterus.

In a statement about the FDA’s authorization of expanded use of Mifepristone to terminate babies of later gestational age, Planned Parenthood said the approval is based on “the most common evidence-based protocols recommended by Planned Parenthood, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Family Planning.”

“First and foremost, this is another affirmation from the FDA that medication abortion is a safe and effective option to end an early pregnancy,” said Raegan McDonald-Mosley, Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). “Studies show medication abortion has a 99 percent safety record, and that medication abortion is up to 98 percent effective in ending an early pregnancy.”

McDonald-Mosley coontinued:

Since Planned Parenthood’s medical standards are constantly-evolving with the latest clinical research findings, we have actually had the protocols approved today in place at Planned Parenthood for some time. But given the restrictions on medication abortion enacted at the state level in recent years, updating the label to reflect best medical practice represents a significant step forward for science, for women, and for health care providers who want to give our patients the highest quality care.

Planned Parenthood says that with the new Mifepristone label stating the drug may be taken later on in pregnancy, women in Ohio, Texas, and North Dakota – where laws have required that the drug be administered according to its label – will be able to abort their babies at a later stage in the pregnancy.

National pro-life leaders, however, view the FDA’s easing of requirements on the drug as yet another bow to the abortion industry.

“This is another example of a reckless government agency putting women’s health and lives at risk to appease the abortion industry so they can continue to make money off of medical abortions without taking proper care of women,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, tells Breitbart News.

“Today the Food and Drug Administration put access to abortion over and above women’s health by extending the use of chemical abortion to two months,” said Jeanne Mancini, President of the March for Life Education & Defense Fund in a press statement.

“RU-486 (chemical abortion) is harder on women physically and involves less medical oversight than surgical abortion,” she added. “The March for Life calls on the FDA to release the latest adverse events reports related to RU-486, showing the number of complications and deaths related to this drug that was approved in a rushed, politicized fashion back in 2000.”

Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, agreed women will suffer in this move that will likely lead to less physician monitoring and increase the chance for serious complications.

“We all agree that the FDA should be looking out for the best interests of American health care consumers, but in this case, they’re serving the interests of the abortion industry and Danco Laboratories, the sole provider of mifepristone in the U.S,” he observed in a statement. “At least eight deaths have been documented of women using mifepristone for abortion, all of them using the off-label protocol that the FDA has just approved.”

Scheidler said the FDA’s move will “improve the bottom line for abortion providers, who charge as much for a medical abortion as for a surgical one.”

He points out the realities of abortion by medication:

Medical abortion is billed by the abortion industry as safe and easy, but typically involves excruciating cramps and excessive bleeding, sometimes for days, and all while a woman is on her own. The abortion itself happens far from the abortionist’s office: at home, at school, at work or out at the mall. And in the end, an innocent human life has been destroyed in its first weeks of life.

“With this deplorable decision, the FDA has abdicated its responsibility to safeguard women’s health and defend human life,” Scheidler said.

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