Last week, Holly Patterson, age 18, died after being given RU-486 at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Hayward, Ca. She was seven weeks pregnant. Although she lived with her father, Monty Patterson, he was unaware of the pregnancy until hours before her death when she was bleeding profusely and was in such pain she couldn’t walk, according to press reports. She received the prescription from Planned Parenthood on Wednesday, September 10 and began taking the drugs on Saturday. On Sunday, her boyfriend rushed her to a hospital where she was given painkillers and released. She was dead by 2 p.m. on Wednesday, having suffered a massive systemic infection and septic shock caused by fragments of the baby’s body remaining in her uterus.

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (9/20/03) says, "Monty Patterson believes his daughter, Holly, did not have adequate information and supervision to go through with the abortion on her own. 'The medical community treats this as a simple pill you take, as if you’re getting rid of a headache,' Patterson said in a telephone interview, his anguish tinged with anger. 'The procedure, the follow-ups, it's all too lackadaisical. The girl gets a pill. Then she's sent home to do the rest on her own. There are just too many things that can go wrong.'"

According to the Chronicle, "Dr. Richard Hausknecht, medical director for Danco Laboratories, which manufactures the drug, said 225,000 women have been treated in the United States with mifepristone, the drug's official name, since it was approved three years ago. He indicated that the company has since passed on to the FDA about 400 reports of adverse events, ranging from excessive bleeding to bacterial infections." At least two abortive mothers have died after taking the drugs.

We join with Family Research Council in calling on the FDA to reconsider its approval of RU-486. 
Abortion providers are interested in one thing—money. Evidence shows that they are too-often unconcerned about protecting the health of the women and girls who come to them seeking a quick "solution" to their problem. Predictably, there will many more Hollys unless the FDA fulfills its responsibility to protect the health of U.S. citizens, in this case, by removing RU-486 from the market.

Our good friend, long-time pro-life leader and activist Joe Scheidler, said in a statement issued on 9/22/03: "Holly Patterson should not have died. Neither should her unborn baby have had to die. But in our culture of death, young women are encouraged to be sexually active and then encouraged to get rid of the natural consequences of sexual activity. They are told that abortion is a quick, simple procedure and RU-486 was marketed as a boon to women. It is not. Abortion is never good for a woman, or for her baby."