Researchers from the FDA, CDC and NIAID gathered in a secure auditorium in Atlanta yesterday to further their scientific understanding of the cause of seven deaths among women, some of which have been linked in the media and by abortion opponents to Mifeprex, the prescribed abortion medicine. While the linkage to hot-button issues like abortion has grabbed headlines, the two bacteria (Clostridium sordellii and Clostidium difficle) have caused infections and deaths in at least 11 other women, twice as many as have died of infection after taking the prescribed abortion medicine.

C-diff is becoming a regular menace in hospitals and nursing homes, and was blamed for more than 100 deaths over 18 months at a hospital in Quebec. Dr. Paul Seligman of the FDA said, "What we do know is that in this country we are seeing the simultaneous emergence of two virulent, often fatal illnesses affecting otherwise healthy people. Attendees agreed there needs to be further collaborative (laboratory) research. The House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources will hold further hearings next week.

In Colombia, women were given rights to a legal and medically safe abortion in limited circumstance by the country’s Constitutional Court, continuing a trend throughout Latin America of elevating the status of women’s rights. Opponents of abortion rights believed that this heavily Catholic nation would not overturn the ban and worked to prevent it.

“This is a momentous decision for the women of Colombia,” said Luisa Cabal, Director of the International Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “The highest court in the land has taken a major step toward protecting women’s dignity and basic human rights.” In Colombia, where one quarter of pregnancies are terminated, unsafe abortion is the third leading cause of maternal mortality. The decision comes as a result of a constitutional challenge filed by Colombian lawyer Mónica Roa, who worked as a fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights from 2000 to 2002.

The plaintiff in that case was a young woman who was forced by state employed health officials to carry a fatally impaired fetus to term. In a similar case in Mexico, brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Mexican government agreed to a settlement ensuring reparations for a 13-year-old rape victim who was denied access to a legal abortion.

According to the New York Times “Latin America has a higher rate of abortion than even in Western European countries where abortion is legal and widely available. Four million abortions, most of them illegal, take place in Latin America annually, the United Nations reports, and up to 5,000 women are believed to die each year from complications that arise from the procedure. At least 300,000 illegal abortions are believed to take place in Colombia each year.”