Mark Evans Quotes
It is so very sad to see that political arguments can totally obscure the science of a drug. It's hard to see how to proceed if the release of such a vital drug [RU 486] can, and will be, held hostage to a minority of the American public.
In 1988 a French pharmaceutical firm developed a drug that would produce an abortion with less risk to the woman than previous methods. Anti abortion groups threatened the company with boycotts, and the firm withdrew the drug from the market. The French government then ordered the company to release the drug, but vehement political opposition in the U.S. made availability in America problematical.
Mark I. Evans, Director of Reproductive Genetics, Hutzel Hospital, Detroit, Ethics Committee, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Quoted in The Washington Post, October 30, 1988
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
At the time of the debate, the average pregnant woman’s risk of death was much higher from delivery than for an early abortion.
The Prime Minister’s wife, a Roman Catholic, like most Roman Catholics in Europe and America practice contraception despite the fact that the Catholic Church still maintains that artificial means of birth control is a sin. Rarely are such personal matters discussed with the media in Great Britain which respects the personal privacy of public figures more so than the United States. However, Mrs. Blair and her husband have been particularly open throughout their public career.
Sanger thought of as a radical feminist by many, was actually opposed to most abortions. This was not opposed on Biblical or religious grounds however. She saw most (non-medically indicated) abortions as necessitated by accidental, undesired pregnancies or pregnancies of women who could not economically afford a child. She felt the latter could and should be solved by progressive social and economic policies. And the former, could be prevented by contraceptives where were rarely used as the result of ignorance and the illegality of the sale of most devices.
When couples use in vitro fertilization to have children, they usually produce several fertilized embryos one of which is implanted into the womb of the mother. The other embryos can produce stem cells which are cells that can grow into any other kind of cell—brain cells, bone, cells, kidney cells, stc. Therefore they have the most promise for medical research. However, some people regard the embryos as human beings at an early stage of development and see the embryos as life. For them the notion of using that “life” for medical research where a human being will not be produced but instead a medicine or replacement cells for a sick person crosses a moral line of what is proper for a life form. Others observe that the embryos are kept alive in freezers and will be thrown away if not needed so why not use them to help mankind. At the other extreme some are opposed to allowing in vitro fertilization to begin with, but there have been over a million people born with this technique to couples who otherwise would not have been able to have children.
Dr. Mark I. Evans, director of reproductive genetics at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit and a member of the ethics committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
