Among the 35,000 plus women gathered in Beijing and Huairou in September 1995, ten were from The Feminist Majority. Here are on-site accounts that Feminist Majority Delegation members posted on The Feminist Majority Foundation Online throughout the conference. |
September 3, 1995 - Sarah Lunt, FMF Special Correspondent
Around The World RU 486 A Healthcare Breakthrough For Women Huairou, China - Researchers, physicians, and feminist advocates from both developing and industrialized countries in a Feminist Majority Foundation-sponsored RU 486 workshop heralded the use of RU 486 as a method of early abortion. Panelists told a packed audience about the experiences of women in China, France, Sweden, Great Britain, and the United States with RU 486 and described efforts to expand the compound's availability worldwide.
Dr. Jennifer Jackman, Director of Policy and Research for the Feminist Majority Foundation, opened the RU 486 session by describing how RU 486 will reframe the abortion debate and expand women's reproductive health care options in the United States. The enthusiasm of American women for RU 486, she said, is revealed by the Foundation's 1995 National Women's Equality Poll showing that 66% of the public supports RU 486 -- even though the product is not yet on the American market.
Margaret Catley-Carlson, President of the Population Council, presented data on abortion services worldwide and described the success of RU 486 in Population Council-sponsored clinical trials in the U.S., India, China, and Cuba. In all settings, women overall were pleased with their experiences and many preferred RU 486 to previous surgical abortion procedures.
Patent rights on RU 486 were transferred from the drug's manufacturer, Roussel Uclaf, to the Population Council in May of 1994. Once RU 486 (which will be known by its scientific name mifepristone in the U.S.) receives FDA approval, the Population Council will evaluate marketing the compound in other countries, according to Catley-Carlson.
Dr. Xiao Bilian of the National Research Institute for Family Planning in China related Chinese women's overwhelming preference for RU 486 as a method to terminate early pregnancy. In the past year, three Chinese plants have begun to manufacture a Chinese version of RU 486, which is comparable in safety and efficacy to the Roussel Uclaf product.
Swedish and French women's health care activists reported similar success with RU 486 in their countries.
In Great Britain, RU 486 is available, according to Karen Newman of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, but use of the compound by women is limited by stiff controls on distribution and government-imposed waiting periods.
Urging expanded distribution of RU 486, Agnete Strom of the Norway Women's Front described her organizations continuing battle to bring RU 486 to women in Norway.
Schedule of Plenaries
Statistics on the Status of Women
Copyright 1995, The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing Inc.
