Why doesn't the National Abortion Federation List the Side Effects of RU-486 in its Ad Campaign? Sleazy tactics remind some of cigarette industry, used car dealers.
(CNSNews.com) - As abortion rights advocates wind-down a controversial six-month ad campaign promoting mifepristone, the abortion pill also known as RU-486, pro-life activists continue to remind women of what the ads won't tell them.
The ongoing problem, they say, is that the print ads - which ran in Cosmopolitan, People and Vanity Fair, among other magazines - didn’t include details of the drug's potential side effects.
"This is extremely irresponsible to be promoting this dangerous drug without even warning women there are some consequences attached to it," said Wendy Wright, director of communications for Concerned Women for America.
The National Abortion Foundation, a professional group of abortionists, who make money off of each sale of the drug, is funding the -million ad campaign, which it claims reached more than 70 percent of women between 18 and 49 during its July-to-November run. Since the organization isn't tied to the pill's manufacturer, it doesn't have to follow FDA guidelines requiring disclosure of the drug's side effects, a spokeswoman said.
"This isn't a pharmaceutical ad," NAF executive director Vicki Saporta told The Wall Street Journal. "We aren't a pharmaceutical company."
While they may not be illegal nationally, such ad practices are misleading, pro-life supporters say, and may violate deceptive trade practices laws in the 50 states.
The Washington D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering is defending the NAF in a deceptive ad case filed in Illinois.
"The sad thing for women is they won't get all the facts," said Heather Cirmo, a spokeswoman for the Family Research Council. "They're led into believing it's a quick fix.
"It's not something that just makes your baby disappear. The baby passes through you, a potentially very traumatic experience, and that's something the abortion lobby doesn't come clean with for women," she said.
The controversial ad features a woman gazing out a window, along with the words, "You have the freedom to choose. And now, you have another safe abortion choice." The ad lists a hotline run by the abortion foundation.
Experts expected the FDA's approval of the pill last fall to revolutionize abortion practices. But with less than a third of Planned Parenthood facilities providing it nationally, and with more women rejecting the complicated procedure of multiple medical visits required for the pill, RU-486's market penetration has been modest.
That has opponents believing the ad campaign is a desperate effort to revive popularity in a fading drug - the long-term effects of which are relatively unknown, they say.
"I would surmise the National Abortion Foundation is using RU-486 as a manipulative tool to try to create the image that women can have a so-called easy abortion," Wright said.
"We don't know what this could do to you. These women are being used as the guinea pigs."
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