The Father of the Abortion Pill
Pam Belluck of The New York Times profiles Dr. Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the creator of the abortion pill, mifepristone. Baulieu, a Jew, fled Nazi persecution during WWII and joined the French Resistance before becoming a doctor. His medication is now used in more than half of American abortions every year. “For his leading role in developing mifepristone, he has been hailed as a visionary by abortion rights supporters and vilified as an incarnation of Hitler by abortion opponents, a charge that he said he found especially jarring because he is Jewish,” Belluck writes. “Although he and the pill have become lightning rods, Dr. Baulieu speaks of the abortion debate without vitriol, cognizant of the complexity of the issue.”