The availability of the abortion pill in the United States might be delayed because of legislation introduced on Tuesday that would tighten controls over who can provide the pill.

Senator Tim Hutchinson, R-Ariz., is sponsoring a bill called the Patient Health and Safety Act. The bill is an attempt to repeal the Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone, otherwise known as RU-486.

"It sets up standards for prescribing physicians," Alan Staggers, spokesman for Tom Hutchinson, said.

Staggers said Hutchinson has the safety of women in mind with this bill.

"The purpose of this bill is to ensure the health and safety of women who are prescribed RU-486," Hutchinson said in a press release.

"The standards FDA approved are inadequate and are less restrictive than many of those found in Europe, where this drug has been legal for several years."

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the abortion pill RU-486 and sold it under the brand name Mifeprex, last year.

Currently FDA regulations require that abortion pill providers have plans in place to refer a woman for a surgical abortion if the medical abortion is incomplete and that physicians be able to tell how far along the pregnancy is.

However, all doctors prescribing the pill don't have the requirement mandated by the new legislation.

The new bill would require physicians to be qualified to handle complications of an incomplete abortion and to be trained to perform a surgical abortion if needed.

Physicians would also be required to have the privilege to admit patients to a nearby hospital in case of complications such as excessive bleeding.

It also requires that any physicians be able to read a sonogram in order to date the pregnancy and identify an ectopic pregnancy.

This bill has not been introduced without debate.

"We are not without opposition and many democrats have argued against the bill," Staggers said.

Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a press release that the legislators are threatening the reproductive rights and health of American women.

"Today, they are seeking to restrict access to mifepristone.

Tomorrow, it will be all forms of abortion," Feldt said. "The day after that, contraception, family planning services, medically accurate sex education and who knows what else."

Members of Congress don't like science that contradicts with their ideology, they don't like it when science gives women more options, she added.

Some students agree with Feldt and said that the use of the pill should be a woman's choice.

"I think the pill is actually safer for a woman than an abortion procedure," Scott Jarvis (senior-biotechnology) said. "If a woman wants to do it, why take that right away from them?"