The Upjohn Company denies it has plans, but a salesman, believing otherwise, resigns.
Abortion, a generally safe procedure, is still one that must be performed in a hospital or doctor’s clinic. The drugs necessary for a reliable early abortion at home, however, are in advanced stages of testing. The side effects that have thus far kept them off the market are being eliminated.
The Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, is largely responsible for researching the drugs, called prostaglandins. The company denies it is researching a product for do-it-yourself abortions, but the direction of its work has become all too clear, at least to one of the company’s top salesmen, who recently resigned as a matter of conscience.
Prostaglandins, which are naturally occurring hormonelike bodily substances, cause contraction of the uterine wall, then menstruation, and, consequently, abortion. They were developed by Upjohn and have been used since the early 1970s to end second-trimester abortions. But because of the severe side effects, which include vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and uterine pain, their use has been confined to hospitals.
It was his suspicion that Upjohn was sponsoring further research on prostaglandins for home use that caused pharmacist George Schimming, one of the company’s most productive salesmen, to resign in April. He left after he discovered that Upjohn was providing drugs and financial support for projects whose clearly stated goals included the refinement of an abortion-inducing drug for home use.
Prostaglandins have many uses, including treatment of ulcers, asthma, and cardiovascular disorders such as hypertension. Prostaglandins are used to dilate a woman’s cervix to make childbirth at term easier. They are also used to abort dead fetuses to spare women the physical and psychological trauma of carrying a dead baby to term.
Ironically, prostaglandins offer lifesaving temporary therapy for certain kinds of “blue babies” awaiting surgery.
For these reasons, Schimming defended Upjohn for years, but questions from skeptical prolife organizations kept surfacing. Late last year, he sent off a long letter to Upjohn, asking for the full story.
Upjohn responded with a form letter that stated that it was “developing an abortion product to be used in early abortions.” The letter went on to state the company’s stand on abortion: “Where a woman decides in concert with her physician to have an abortion we believe that if it’s within our ability to deliver a safe and effective medical agent for the procedure, we have a responsibility to do so.”
The letter, however, denied that Upjohn has plans of marketing a home, “do-it-yourself” abortion product. Schimming’s research has led him to believe otherwise. In the February 1983 issue of Contraception, a monthly medical journal, an introduction to a research report calls “post-conceptional menses induction” a “high priority therapeutic need.” The introduction further states that this “non-invasive method … might receive wider acceptance in lesser developed countries and by users who prefer a self-administered method,” and point out that the method “facilitates large scale use.…”
Schimming noticed that in almost all the abortion-related research he found in Contraception, and in another medical journal called Prostaglandins, Upjohn was credited for providing drugs and financial support. Although the January letter said the drug was being tested only in the United States, Schimming found reports of Upjohn’s involvement in research in Sweden and in other countries. Schimming also ran across a statement by Edward M. Southern, a fertility researcher for Upjohn, who wrote that “self-administration of prostaglandins during the first six weeks of pregnancy look favorable” and “there seems to be no doubt that we can expect a continued expansion in this direction and that possibly an important field of fertility control is evolving.”
“I knew that if they were going to continue the research, I couldn’t continue to support them in any way,” says Schimming. And so he called it quits. There was no hesitancy on his part, and Upjohn had no questions.
“Until I actually resigned,” says Schimming, “I felt a burden I couldn’t carry.”
Schimming is now trying to educate people about Upjohn. He maintains high respect for the company, and he rejects the hard-hitting attacks on Upjohn by the Moral Majority, calling them inflammatory. He believes a more compassionate and more pragmatic approach is to appeal to Upjohn’s moral sensitivities. He says that Upjohn is responsive to public opinion.
For its part, Upjohn stands by the accuracy of its January letter to Schimming. Despite the direction of Upjohn-sponsored research, a company spokesman reaffirms that Upjohn is developing an abortion product not for home use but for first-trimester abortions in hospitals.
If it is true that Upjohn has no plans to market a home abortion drug, it may only be true because such a drug is not yet marketable. Physician John Willke of the National Right-to-Life Committee, which has a bulging file on Upjohn, calls its denial of plans for home use “completely absurd.” He says, “That’s where the money will be.
Willke can only speculate about when a do-it-yourself abortion drug will be marketed. He says the “threat of it happening in the next few years is real.” Schimming’s guess is five years.
In a 1979 issue of American Pharmacy, it was stated that Upjohn took “the longest of long shots” in its decision to research prostaglandins when only a handful of scientists had ever heard of them. Today, thousands of man hours and millions of dollars later, Schimming cannot foresee Upjohn, with its ambivalence on abortion, turning down the opportunity to reap the financial benefits of its investment.
His hope and his prayer is that sensitive public protest will cause a change of heart and mind at Upjohn.
The nation’s two major Mennonite groups have adopted a resolution calling on the government to end all foreign military aid. The Mennonite Church General Assembly and the General Conference Mennonite Church also called on the United States and Canada “to actively encourage a negotiated settlement of the conflicts in Central America.”
X-rated films are attracting audiences in the millions, reports the newspaper Electronic Media. The weekly publication estimates there are one million subscribers to cable systems offering the films and 370,000 subscribers to multiple distribution systems and subscription channels offering them. Twelve states are studying legislation to ban indecent programming.
The legality of a Nativity scene sponsored by the City of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is being challenged by four organizations, including the National Council of Churches. In briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, opponents maintain the display violates church-state separation. They also say that using a religious symbol for commercial purposes degrades a symbol that is sacred to devout Christians.
A man with a wife and seven children has been ordained a Roman Catholic priest. Paul Thomson, 66, was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1941. Eight years later he became a Roman Catholic. The Catholic church now allows former Episcopal priests, even married ones, to be ordained Catholic priests.
The on-again, off-again law that would deny college students financial aid if they do not register for the draft is on again. But three historic peace churches are trying to soften the law. The Church of the Brethren, the Mennonite Church, and the Society of Friends have established funds to replace federal aid lost to young men who do not register. The Supreme Court revived the law in June, lifting a federal judge’s injunction that would have prevented it from taking effect.
Two allies in the church-state separation movement have taken opposite sides on the issue. Should a religious students’ club in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, be permitted to meet on school property during nonclass hours? The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, which represents nine Baptist denominations, says yes, noting that the group is student initiated and student run. But Americans United for Separation of Church and State disagrees, saying such activity would lead to competition and proselytism among students.
The Mormons have broken ground for a temple in the Midwest. It is being built in the Chicago suburb of Glenview and will be the twenty-fourth in the world. At present, Midwestern Mormons must travel to Washington, D.C., for temple rites.
Robert Schuller and his Garden Grove Community Church (Crystal Cathedral) have paid $473,000 in back taxes. The payment was delivered under protest and with the charge that the cathedral is the object of religious harassment. A church spokesman said the church was prepared to take the matter to court. A hearing with California’s Board of Equalization has been scheduled for October 31. The board has charged that Schuller’s church should not receive a property tax exemption because it is overcommercialized (CT, Aug. 5).
The organization Jews for Jesus has a survey it says refutes the charge it preys on the young and uneducated. Such accusations come frequently from Jewish leaders. The survey revealed that most subjects are a minimum of 25 years of age and have at least a few years of college education. Critics of the survey, however, point out that the survey did not reveal how well the converts were educated in Judaism.
