Rorey Bosotti, BBC News
May 30, 2025
The French scientist who created the abortion pill has died at the age of 98.
Étienne-Émile Baulieu helped develop the oral drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone, which has provided millions of women across the world with a safe and inexpensive alternative to a surgical abortion.
Dr Baulieu died at his home in Paris on Friday, his widow confirmed in a statement.
Abortion pills are more important than ever, and safe far later than most people know
By Cecilia Nowell
Illustrations by Zhenya Oliinyk
Lux Magazine, June(?) issue
In a small Texas courtroom last spring, Erik Baptist, senior counsel for the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, insisted that the Food and Drug Administration had been reckless when it approved the abortion pill mifepristone for use before seven weeks of pregnancy in 2000, and then, in 2016, for up to 10 weeks.
The judge agreed, suspending the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, one of two pills used in the typical protocol for medication abortions in the U.S. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule this summer on whether to uphold the suspension or otherwise restrict the use of mifepristone.
Continued: https://lux-magazine.com/article/second-trimester/
Amid pending court cases and ballot initiatives, journalistic coverage of medication abortion has never been more crucial. This piece aims to help inform the narrative with scientific evidence.
by Naseem S. Miller
November 1, 2023
Access to mifepristone, a medication that’s used for the safe termination of early pregnancy, hangs in the balance while the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to take up a case that could determine the legal future of the abortion medication.
In August, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mifepristone should not be prescribed past the seventh week of pregnancy, prescribed via telemedicine, or shipped to patients through the mail. In September, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to consider a challenge to that ruling.
Continued: https://journalistsresource.org/health/mifepristone-research-roundup/
The abortion pill, first invented in 1980 in France, was slow to be accepted in the US. Now, it’s at the center of a major court fight
by Poppy Noor
Wed 17 May 2023
The future of mifepristone, a crucial abortion drug, is currently in question as US courts consider a challenge brought by anti-abortion groups. Considering medication is the most common US abortion method, it is the most significant reproductive rights case to make its way through the courts since Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022.
The groups suing the Food and Drug Administration over its approval of the drug claim that the drug poses a threat to women and girls – contrary to scientific consensus – and should never have been approved by the FDA more than two decades ago. The FDA vehemently stands by its approval of the pill, with the Biden administration emphasizing the agency’s rigorous safety reviews of the drug.
The untold story of the private equity investors behind Mifeprex—and their escalating legal battle to cash in post-Dobbs.
HANNAH LEVINTOVA
Mother Jones, MARCH+APRIL 2023 ISSUE
In 1993, a group of activists rented a warehouse in suburban Westchester County, New York. It was smaller than they’d hoped and had limited ventilation, but the two other locations they’d tried to rent belonged to universities and required jumping through too many bureaucratic hoops—the exact sort of paper trail this group was trying to avoid.
Led by renowned pro-choice activist Lawrence Lader, their goal was to replicate RU-486, the revolutionary abortion pill developed in the 1980s by French manufacturer Roussel-Uclaf—which was unwilling to navigate American abortion politics to bring the pill stateside.
The 96-year-old scientist who came up with an idea for an “unpregnancy pill” decades ago has led an eventful life, from his teenage days in the French Resistance to his friendships with famous artists.
By Pam Belluck
Jan. 17, 2023
When the idea struck him, nearly 50 years ago, Dr. Étienne-Émile Baulieu believed it could be revolutionary. Creating a pill that could abort a pregnancy would transform reproductive health care, he thought, allowing women to avoid surgery, act earlier and carry out their decisions in private.
“When science meets women’s cause, it is irresistible,” Dr. Baulieu, 96, a French endocrinologist and biochemist often called the father of the abortion pill, said on a recent Sunday afternoon in his apartment in a century-old building a short walk from the Eiffel Tower.
Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/health/abortion-pill-inventor.html
What’s Changed Inside and Outside Abortion Clinics Over 30 Years
April 22, 2019
by Priyanka Boghani
In 1983, a decade after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on Roe v. Wade, FRONTLINE went inside an abortion clinic on the outskirts of Chester, Pennsylvania. In Abortion Clinic, director Mark Obenhaus focused on the experiences of young women dealing with unplanned pregnancies, speaking to people working in the clinic and the protesters calling for its closure.
At the time when Abortion Clinic was released, lawmakers and the public were grappling with the film’s central issue. Almost four decades later, as the U.S. remains bitterly divided on abortion, Obenhaus returns to Pennsylvania with co-producer Elizabeth Leiter to see what has changed. Like its predecessor, FRONTLINE’s latest documentary, The Abortion Divide, paints a portrait of the complicated, personal issues surrounding abortion.
ACT to get increased access to abortion
Sep 19, 2018
GPs in the ACT can now prescribe drugs for medical abortion, bringing the nation's capital in line with other jurisdictions.
The ACT Legislative Assembly passed laws on Wednesday to no longer require an approved facility, such as the Canberra Hospital and Marie Stopes clinic, to terminate pregnancies.
Continued: https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/09/19/19/56/act-to-get-increased-access-to-abortion
Lucky we Victorian women already had this sorted ... right?
By Miki Perkins
10 June 2018
What a fierce lot these Irish women are. It was stirring to see them stride through airports, suitcases in tow, flocking home to vote.
And what a relief to see their country shrug off the weight of history and vote decisively for women’s reproductive rights.
Whew, lucky we Victorian women already had this sorted, right?
Medical abortion access restricted by cost, distance and knowledge
January 23 2017
by Georgina Connery
Only 35 per cent of Australian women eligible for medical abortion are choosing the procedure over surgery, a new study has found.
Up-front costs, a lack of knowledge and needing to return for a check-up a fortnight afterward were factors University of Sydney and Monash University scientists believe hamper women's choices when it comes to terminations.
[continued at link]
Source, Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/medical-abortion-access-restricted-by-cost-distance-and-knowledge-20170122-gtw8el.html
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