Abortion pill attack continues

by our Rome correspondent AT the height of the French abortion pill controversy, Pope John Paul II has again stressed the "impossibility" for Christians of countenancing deliberate pregnancy terminations. Speaking at a special audience this weekend with the French family guidance association, Centre de 'Liaison des Equines de Recherches, the Pope appealed to Catholic couples to follow the Church's moral doctrine more faithfully rejecting any unnatural birth control method.
Recalling Paul VI's encyclical Hunranae Vitae which condemned artificial contraception, John Paul said people should be made aware that its message was not as "negative" as it has been described.
And at a time when Italy's Health Ministry is negotiating for the Italian distribution of the French RU 486 abortion pill, the Pope's condemnation was emphatic: "It is impossible for Christians not to react before the drama of abortion, called as t hey are to defend respect for life."
Last week, Roussel Uclaf, the French pharmaceutical company which manufactures the RU 486 abortion pill, said it would not sanction its Italian distribution. Although the company blamed what it said was Italy's locally controlled health and drug distribution system, it was thought that it had taken its decision also partly out of deference for the Vatican.
Now, however, after a week of parliamentary protests and new negotiations with Roussel representatives, the pill's registration in Italy could be possible within a year.