By Richard D. Glasow, Ph.D.

RU 486 On the Internet

A Review of Online Resources on Chemical Abortion

During the last five years, the Internet has become an excellent resource for information about chemical abortion techniques, such as the dangerous RU 486/Cytotec prostaglandin (RU 486/PG) method. This issue of The RU 486 Report offers insights about the strengths and weaknesses of the Internet and suggestions of sites on it that provide valuable information about chemical abortion.

The focus here is primarily English language sites in the U.S. on the World Wide Web (known as the Web), a rapidly growing subset of the Internet that contains documents and pages that are linked together by a computer language called HTML. Written primarily for experienced Internet users, this article assumes that the reader is familiar with how to log on, use a Web browser such as Microsoft Explorer or Netscape, and navigate around. Internet addresses (the Uniform Resource Locator-URL) are provided in brackets, and some web addresses include a tilde character (~), which is often found on the keyboard on the far left-hand end of the row of number keys.

Strengths and Weaknesses

In searching for chemical-abortion information on the Internet or Web, the wise researcher needs to be aware of some of the important strengths and weaknesses of Cyberspace. On the plus side, the Web offers the following benefits:

– Quick and comprehensive access to the published reports on many media outlets, such as newspapers, magazines, and radio and television networks.

– A way to obtain copies of news releases, position papers and analysis from organizations and advocates on both sides of the controversy;

– A comprehensive tool to search for books and periodical articles that can be found in libraries;

– A method to get the details of late-breaking national news, such as a major development on the marketing of RU 486/PG. Getting the background information quickly facilitates contacting the local media and getting the Pro-Life/Pro-Family perspective on record before the story goes to press or on the air;

– A way to systematically collect information about a pertinent topic on a daily basis.

On the down side, the Web

– Mixes a lot of worthless information with valuable materials and it is hard to tell them apart sometimes;

– Often fails to provide documentation about the author, his sources, or biases;

– Is increasingly being driven by the desires of advertisers, which may skew the quality of the content;

– Is generally searched through tools, known as “search engines,” that may give a false impression that all pertinent materials have been found; and

– Generally forces the searcher to deal with one periodical or newspaper at a time, rather than putting all of the pertinent materials on a topic together in one file.

Let's look in more detail at how some of these issues work out in practice on specific web sites and search engines.

Finding the “Pros” and “Cons” about RU 486

Many of the national organizations on both sides of the controversy over RU 486/PG and other abortion drugs have Web sites. One advantage of using their materials is that the researcher can easily identify where they are coming from. However, most are neither comprehensive nor indexed.

Here are a selection of some of key ones.

Pro-Life/Pro-Family Web Sites

Life Issues Institute

(http://www.lifeissues.org) Recently updated with back copies of this newsletter and other publications about RU 486. The best Web site for comprehensive, up-to-date information for activists, general readers, and students about all aspects of abortion drugs. Provides topical bibliographies and chronologies and index to past issues of The RU 486 Report. Not linked to other web sites.

The RU-486 Files

(http://www.ru486.org) Ted Gerk from Canada got pole position with the name of this site, which is commonly found by several major Web search engines (see next section for more details). An extensive and up-to-date site with links to articles and news clippings going back to 1991, books, related resources, and related web sites. Well worth a look.

Concerned Women for America (CWA)

(http://www.cwfa.org) The Sanctity of Human Life section of CWA's Resource Library contains fact sheets/press releases about RU 486/PG from 12/17/96 through 6/29/98 (http://www.cwfa.org/library/life/#unborn.ru-486).

The Ultimate Pro-life Resource

(http://www.prolife.org/ultimate/) A website maintained by Steven Ertelt and Sally Winn of Women and Children First, a 501(c)(3) pro-life group based in Chatham, IL. Provides reprints of a variety of materials opposing RU 486/PG abortion that vary in quality and length (http://www.prolife.org/ ultimate/chemical.html).

National Right to Life

(http://www.nrlc.org) Extensive site with materials on a variety of pro-life issues. Part of one pamphlet on the medical facts on abortion is devoted to RU 486/PG at http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/asmf6.html.

Pro-RU 486 Web Sites

Population Council

(http://www.popcouncil.org) This is the most important Web site on the advocates' side because the Council controls the U.S. patent for RU 486, is in charge of the licensing of RU 486, and is arranging for the marketing through a separate company.

The specific details about RU 486/PG are found under the “Reproductive Health Products Development Program” on the Council's home page. The website has several fact sheets, which are periodically updated. The “Medical Abortion with Mifepristone (RU 486) and Misoprostol (Cytotec prostaglandin)” fact sheet (http://www.popcouncil.

org/rhpdev/mifepristone_faq98.html) was last updated in May 1998, which may indicate that not much of significance has occurred since. The fact sheets provide a comprehensive overview of how RU 486/PG is used and the method's alleged excellent safety and efficacy. The web site also describes the results of the U.S. RU 486/PG test, and the two medical journal articles published about it.

The “News Room” would be the place to look for a press release if the Council makes any major announcements about RU 486/PG.
(http://www. popcouncil.org/newsroom/default.html).

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA)

(http://www.plannedparenthood.org/main.htm) PPFA is the nation's leading provider and promoter of abortion. The Web site has fact sheets about abortion, including RU 486/PG, but the RU 486/PG fact sheet was last updated in December, 1997 (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/library/ABORTION/medicalabort.html). The Web site has a fact sheet about the research that PPFA affiliates across the country are conducting using the anti-cancer drug methotrexate (MTX) and Cytotec prostaglandin for abortion (MTX/PG) (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/library/ABORTION/methotrexate.html). PPFA also issues press releases about its activities and major abortion-related events.

Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF)

(http://www.feminist.org/home.html) FMF, headed by radical pro-abortion feminist Eleanor Smeal, has been one of the leading promoters of RU 486/PG abortion. Its Web site contains fact sheets, which contain some of the strongest (and inaccurate) rhetoric touting the alleged benefits of RU 486 for non-abortion uses, such as breast cancer (http://www .feminist.org/other/bc/bcru486.html). Two useful items are the list of U.S. sites for the Abortion Rights Mobilization's test of RU 486/PG and a chronology of development of RU 486.

National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL)

(http://www.naral.org) NARAL offers fact sheets with references on RU 486/PG abortion, “emergency contraception,” and a short chronology of the RU 486 controversy from 1980 to 1996.

Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI)

(http://www.agi-usa.org/home2.html) AGI is Planned Parenthood's special research affiliate and publishes pro-abortion propaganda disguised as objective research. Its magazine, Family Planning Perspectives, recently published AGI's latest survey of abortion providers in the U.S., which included data about the use of abortion drugs (http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/3026398.html).

Use Search Engines With Caution

Although the web sites of the advocates and opponents provide the most pertinent and comprehensive information about chemical abortion on the Internet, there are many other useful places to use too. Let's look at methods to find them.

Many people on the Internet use “search engines,” which are web pages that help find information. When using a search engine, you do not search the web. Actually, you are searching a database of indexed web sites. The results of a search vary from one engine to another. Two major reasons for the difference is that search engine companies have different method of indexing and are not keeping up with the expansion of sources on the World Wide Web. Some also present the results differently than others.

In the April 3, 1998 issue of Science, one of the most widely read research journals, two computer scientists described how they tested the coverage of the Web by six leading search engines. They concluded that coverage by any one engine was “significantly limited,” and observed that combining the results of all six significantly improved the results.

The wide disparity between search engines is evident from the following list of results of a search for information on “RU 486" on some of the leading search engines (listed in alphabetical order):

AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com) found 3,703 web pages. The first entry was Ted Gerk's ru486.org web site, followed by a pro-abortion website by the California affiliate of NARAL featuring an article by Dr. David Grimes, an abortionist who has tested RU 486/PG.

The RU 486 Report is a monthly newsletter focusing on abortion drugs, with special emphasis on RU 486.

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Excite (http://search.excite.com) got 269,994 “hits.” The first was a press release on Sept. 18, 1996 from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) opposing the Food and Drug Administration's “approvable letter” on RU 486. The next was a resolution from a medical association endorsing RU 486.