New York City women will have access to the early-abortion pill as early as Tuesday, when the first shipments of the newly approved controversial drug reach local health-care providers.
Overnight deliveries of RU-486 begin tomorrow, according to Danco Laboratories of New York, the drug’s distributor.
Although the drug – approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 28 – has already sparked heated debate between pro-choice and anti-abortion activists, it’s not yet clear how available it actually will be in the city.
Clinics and hospitals that already provide surgical abortions will be the first to offer the drug, which enables women to abort within the first seven weeks of pregnancy.
The drug is expected to cost at least $300, which is comparable to a surgical abortion – with most health-insurance companies covering the fee.
Planned Parenthood’s three area health centers – in Brooklyn, Manhattan and The Bronx – plan to offer RU-486 to clients starting Dec. 4.
The drug, whose chemical name is mifepristone, will be given as an abortion option along with the traditional surgical procedure, said Roger Rathman, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood New York.
“From our standpoint, the more options a woman has, the better,” he explained.
Planned Parenthood and other local abortion groups also plan to expand access to the drug – which has been available in France since 1989 – by training family physicians and other doctors in its use in their private practices.
“RU-486 will have the potential to increase the number of providers and put the abortion issue where it belongs – between a woman and her doctor,” Rathman said.
But pro-choice advocates say that it will take time and training for RU-486’s reach to expand to family doctors.
The National Abortion Federation has trained over 2,000 health-care providers across the country to use RU-486, said the group’s executive director, Vicky Saporta. About 25 percent of those trained have never provided abortions before.
“We’re working with our members to make sure that they get the product this week,” Saporta said.
“By Tuesday, women around the country and in New York will be able to access very early abortions using mifepristone.”
The Open Society Institute – the foundation established by financier George Soros – is issuing grants to several New York health-care providers to train medical personnel to use the drug, said Ellen Chesler, who heads the not-for-profit’s reproductive-rights program.
The New York state chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League will offer RU-486 training in a program that targets rural health-care providers.
NARAL hopes this effort will make abortion more widely available in the 42 percent of counties in the state where doctors currently do not provide the procedure, said Jean McMahon, director of the Rural Provider Project.
Meanwhile, pro-lifers have launched a public education campaign designed to warn women about the drug and its complications.
“We’re going to be stepping up efforts to make sure that American women know the dangers of the drug and that they recognize that it is killing an unborn child,” said Laura Echevarria, a spokeswoman for the National Right to Life Committee.
“We feel that American women’s lives are placed in jeopardy by taking RU-486. They’re being treated as guinea pigs.”
Others have turned to the Web to rev up opposition to the drug.
On his Web site, pro-life activist Neal Horsely calls the procedure the legalization of “In-Home Poison.”
Horsely plans to use his site to post the names of doctors who prescribe RU-486.
The possibility of increased pro-life protests in response to the new method has some local abortion providers reluctant to talk about the details of their programs.
At one hospital, administrators and doctors declined to talk to The Post about the program – citing fear of anti-abortion violence.