Ru 486 Misconceptions Myths and Morals - ressourcesfeministes

RU 486being indispensible to the viability of a pregnancy during itsinitial seven weeks. To establish this finding, hisexperimentation was performed not in vitro, not in animals,but in 12 pregnant women. Three of these women were tohave their ovaries removed because of ovarian cysts, andthe other nine women wanted to undergo legal abortion andtubal ligation. With abdominal surgery a luteectomy (excisionof the corpus luteum) was performed through an incision inthe ovarian capsule over the corpus luteum. It was removedin its entirety. The women were then assigned to two groupsaccording to the effect of the luteectomy on their pregnancy.Group 1 included the seven women who abor ted, usuallyfour to five days after the surgery, although the abortion‘…was not invariably complete. In one case the detachedplacenta and in another, a placental residue had to be removedby curettage.’ The mean pregnancy age in Group 1 womenwas 49 days, whereas in the five women in Group 2 whodid not abort, it was 61 days. Csapo et al. concluded, despitetheir own admission that the estimates of gestational age mightbe in error ‘by as much as four weeks’ that the60…indispensibility of the early human corpus luteum inpregnancy is not challenged by reliable clinical evidence.Additional efforts to examine the regulatory role of thisgland and of its product, progesterone, appear fullyjustified. Successful in terference with critical progesteronelevels in the pregnant uterus either through reducedsynthesis or transport, decreased availability of receptorsites, or increased in situ catabolism, are promisingprospective measures of fertility control (1972:1067).We contend that it was these studies of Csapo et al.—performed with total disrespect of women’s integrity and wellbeing—that provided the impetus for research that is todayclaimed to be new and groundbreaking. The unethicalprocedures women were subjected to in Csapo et al.’s