The Nation - News from June 2, 1989

National Organization for Women President Molly Yard and former NOW President Eleanor Smeal announced a campaign to bring the drug RU 486--sometimes called the “abortion pill”--to the United States. “RU 486 can help save so many lives that we are determined to build a network both nationally and internationally to ensure that its research and development proceeds as fast as possible,” Yard told a news conference in Washington. “Today in the world, one woman dies every three minutes from a botched illegal abortion,” said Smeal, now president of the Fund for a Feminist Majority. RU 486, also known as mifepristone, was developed in France in 1982 and tested for many uses, including inducing abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.