Monthly Archives: June 2000

FDA’s Patronizes Women with RU486 Restrictions

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A couple months ago, I wrote about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration dragging its feet in approving the abortion pill RU-486 (|FDA vs. Women’s Health, Again|.) When he was running for president and needed women’s votes, Bill Clinton promised swift approval of RU-486 if he were elected. Of course once in office, Clinton forgot about his promise and, if anything, the Clinton FDA approach to RU-486 was far worse than the Reagan administration approach (at least the Reagan administration was frank enough to admit its ideological opposition to RU-486).

Now word comes from on high that the FDA is finally ready to approve RU-486. Unfortunately it is going to attach a set of unprecedented conditions that may make illegally smuggling the drug into the U.S. more viable than getting the drug via prescription.

First, the FDA wants all physicians who prescribe RU-486 to be part of a national registry of abortion pill providers. What genius at FDA thought this would be a good idea? Is it possible they’ve been so busy finding excuses not to approve the drug that they’ve missed the wave of anti-abortion violence directed against clinics and doctors over the past 20 years? The creation of a national registry is an open invitation for violent anti-abortion extremists.

Second, the FDA wants to limit the doctors who can prescribe RU-486 to just those doctors who are also qualified to perform surgical abortions. In addition the doctors would be required to hold admitting privileges to a hospital within one hour’s drive of their office. According to the FDA, the justification for this rule is that if RU-486 should not cause an abortion, the woman’s physician will be able to perform a surgical abortion. This is downright bizarre. My wife has chronic back pain and went to her physician for a pain killing prescription. Under the FDA’s logic, however, only a physician qualified to do back surgery should be allowed to write prescriptions for back pain. Women are clearly resourceful enough in this day and age to find a physician to perform a surgical abortion if RU-486 fails.

Finally, the FDA unbelievably wants to create some sort of system to track women who take RU-486, which it says is necessary to track any possible side effects from the drug.

The reality is that, again, the FDA seems more likely to be interested in presidential politics, not wanting to inject the RU-486 issue as an issue in the upcoming election. This is a drug that has been used safely and successfully in Europe for decades now — the requirements to limit and track who can prescribe the pill are completely unwarranted, as is the tracking of patients, considering the drug’s track record in Europe. As Dr. Michael Creinin of the University of Pittsburgh told CNN, “The FDA is creating a whole new standard with these restrictions” (FDA approval of abortion pill linked to stringent conditions).

The FDA should stop its shameful delaying tactics and approve RU-486 with all possible haste. Leave it to the Clinton administration to play politics with women’s health and reproductive choices.

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Violent Hypocrisy

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The Associated Press carried a story the other day on efforts to raise awareness about violence among dating teenagers (Schools struggle to contain dating violence). The story described efforts in Massachusetts, which has one of the most comprehensive programs in the nation to address and prevent such violence.

Addressing the possibilities of interpersonal violence and teaching young men and women to deal with their problems without resorting to violence is certainly an admirable goal and with some studies suggesting up to 1 in 5 students are victims of some form of dating-related violence sometime in their lives, this is certainly a worthy project.

Unfortunately, the Associated Press story included a quote from an alleged expert who argued that in some cases a physical assault or emotional abuse really don’t count as violence. What special cases are these? When the violence involves a young women assaulting a young man.

The surveys of violence among young men and women are pretty clear — both groups report similar levels of victimization, although as with violence between adults, women are far more likely to end up requiring hospital visits or other medical intervention as a result of an assault.

Still violence is violence, but not according to Carole Sousa, a consultant on dating violence to the Massachusetts Department of Education. According to the Associated Press story,

Some studies have suggested that almost as many boys as girls are victims of dating violence, but Sousa contends such figures are misleading. Boys
may be mocked or slapped by a girlfriend, but they often laugh off the
mistreatment, she said. Girls almost exclusively are the victims in cases of
sexual violence or injuries requiring hospitalization, Sousa said.

This is a bizarre claim. The obvious implication is that if a man just slaps a woman a little and calls her names, which she laughs off, that it is misleading to call this serious violence. I thought feminists wanted to call that battered women’s syndrome.

Why is it so hard for these activists to get it through their heads that violence is always an extremely serious matter even if it doesn’t lead to serious injury and regardless of whether it is perpetrated by men or women. Sousa’s claim outrageously minimizes violence committed by women, which is very odd given the general feminist claim that we need to set aside our pre-conceived stereotypes of male and female roles. Instead activists such as Sousa seem to be informed entirely by stereotypes of men as always being the aggressive victimizer and women as always being the passive victim. Which is ironic given that young men are far more likely to be victims of violence than any other group. Reducing violence requires a holistic approach, not the sex-segregated stereotypes being pushed by activists like Sousa.

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Accused Rapist Gets Disability Benefits

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The Washington Post recently reported (DNA Tested In Sex Abuse Case Against Ex-Fairfax Principal) on the case of former high school principal Anthony Rizzo Jr. A former student of Rizzo’s claimed he sexually assaulted her hundreds of times, but two separate trials have resulted in hung juries due largely to a lack of physical evidence against Rizzo.

The bizarre part of the case is that after he was fired, Rizzo filed for and now receives benefits from the state for a peculiar disability — Rizzo claims he has a “psychosexual disorder” that compels him to sexually harass any women that he supervises. After Rizzo was fired by his school in 1989 for sexually harassing female teachers he supervised, Rizzo filed for the benefits and won them on a technicality when the state of Virginia missed a deadline to reach a decision his absurd claim.

Virginia is now forced to try to demonstrate that Rizzo no longer has a compulsion to sexually harass female employees. It recently stopped his benefits after Rizzo’s lawyer advised him to invoke his Fifth Amendment right during a state psychologist’s examination to determine if he still suffered from his “psychosexual disorder.” Rizzo is suing to get the payments reinstated.

Only in America could you simultaneously have a sexual harassment witch hunt that attempts to criminalize all sexual speech in the work space, while at the same time financially rewarding a man who admits he attempts to coerce sex from female employees.

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