Abortion drug use queried
CAIRNS obstetrician Caroline de Costa has questioned the legality of an abortion provider's use of the abortion drug RU486.
Professor de Costa suspended her own RU486 program, the country's first, after a Cairns couple was charged with criminal offences in March for allegedly procuring contraband abortion drugs in Ukraine, which police say were used by a 19-year-old Cairns woman to terminate her own pregnancy.
But abortion provider Marie Stopes International yesterday began offering women the choice of medical and standard surgical abortions at nine clinics in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the ACT.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration authorised the service to use RU486 under special licensing to give desperately ill people access to drugs not available in this country.
Prof de Costa, who was at the forefront of the campaign to bring RU486 into the country, culminating in historic conscience votes of federal parliament in 2005 and 2006, questioned whether Marie Stopes' expanded use of the drug was legal under Queensland law.
"It's all very annoying, to put it mildly," Prof de Costa said.
"If they ... are able to offer it to women using another variation of law, why can't they share it with us?"
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Controversy continues: Professor Caroline de Costa has stopped prescribing abortion drug RU486, fearing legal implications.
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