Sensing the public-relations disaster, proponents quickly announced that the fault was not with RU 486 itself, but rather with the prostaglandin Nalador (sulprostone). The French use RU 486 with the prostaglandin to increase its "effectiveness."
Indeed, no sooner did these tragic events become public than Etienne Emile Baulieu, the prime promoter of the abortifacient, announced that he had successfully conducted tests using not Nalador, but Cytotec, a prostaglandin manufactured by the U.S. company Searle & Co. of Chicago. As reported in the New York Times on April 9, 1991, we were told this prostaglandin resulted in faster abortions, less pain to women, and so on. The implication was clear: Full speed ahead, the prostaglandin problem has been solved.
Baulieu's attempt to short-circuit a reevaluation of the safety of RU 486 abortion technology is illustrative of an ongoing strategy by proponents of the drug. First, announce that there is no danger ...
