The abortion pill is now the most powerful tool available to the estimated 33 million Americans whose reproductive autonomy the Dobbs decision attempts to negate.
Baulieu was conceived on the Nile—he knows this because his parents honeymooned there while his father, Léon Blum, a specialist in kidney disorders, was in Egypt treating King Fuad I for diabetes. During the First World War, Léon, an Alsatian, had been drafted into the German Army. Concocting a medical pretext, he asked officers to submit urine samples by mail.
Baulieu’s first major discovery involved DHEA, the hormone to which his work would later return. Secreted by the adrenal glands, DHEA plays a key role in manufacturing both testosterone and estrogen, and DHEA levels can serve as an indicator for certain diseases. Other scientists, searching for a detection technique, had tried examining the oily fluids from the adrenal glands.
Baulieu had previously served on a government committee that helped push through the legalization of birth control in France. He knew that public positioning would be important to RU-486’s success. The ability to end a pregnancy by medication was revolutionary for patients , and it would also be more palatable than surgery to some of the constituencies policing their reproductive choices.
America was especially fraught territory for RU-486—an enormous free market with deep-seated sensitivities. Faye Wattleton, who served as the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1978 to 1992, told me that she made three trips to Paris to try to persuade company officials to make the pill available to her group for clinical trials. “I think Roussel-Uclaf was uncomfortable with their product being released to our organization, if you want my opinion,” she said.
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