Special Section: Reproductive Health and Rights
SFMMS Advocacy Case Study
“THE MORAL PROPERTY OF WOMEN”: BRINGING MEDICAL ABORTION TO THE UNITED STATES Steve Heilig, MPH In late 2021, it was reported that just over half of all abortions in the United States were done via oral medications. Now these pills are a central element in the political battles over abortion. And therein lies a story. Way back in the late 1980s, scattered reports begin to appear in the European medical literature about an oral medication that could interrupt early pregnancy both safely and effectively. It was called RU-486, for the French pharmacological company Rousell Uclaf. From these earliest papers it seemed clear this could be an extremely significant development. Abortion was of course a highly politicized issue, and for years those opposed to it had found ways to make it hard to obtain safely, and even mounted physical attacks on clinicians – some of whom were
murdered – and clinical settings where it was provided. Such a medication would make it difficult to target those who provided or took it. And of course most women, given the choice, would prefer a medication option to a surgical one, even if that surgical procedure was the most common one in the nation. At UCSF campus newspaper, I began to cover this developing medication, publishing some of the first stories on it in the country. The Europeans were far ahead of us and soon RU-486 had garnered enough evaluation to be approved in nations such as France and England. At the San Francisco Medical Society we already had a good track record of bringing new policy positions to the California and American Medical Associations, so I drafted a policy resolution stating that American women
“I joke with my patients and say, ‘I missed the day in medical school when they taught us about when life begins. Is it at implantation? Is it just when sperm meets an egg? No one knows’.” – Isaac Sasson, MD, PhD, reproductive endocrinology/ infertility specialist, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, New York Times
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SAN FRANCISCO MARIN MEDICINE APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2022
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