Pro-Choice activists like to blame pro-lifers for delaying the approval of RU-486 in the United States, and it’s true that many pro-life organizations what it as hard as they could. But another reason that it took so long for pharmaceutical companies to start producing it had nothing to do with antiabortion pressure. Some pharmaceutical companies didn’t want to touch it because they were concerned about its effectiveness and safety.
One pharmaceutical company said that they would not produce RU-486 –
“as soon as our attorneys learn that it’s only 95% effective, they began to scream. The other 5% could involve defective children and that, in terms of liability suits, could blow us out of the water.””
Pharmaceutical company executive in the “Political History of RU-486”
Quoted in Mary E Williams. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 2002)
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