women had to be surgically aborted or needed vacuum aspiration shortly after taking the regular dose of 600mg of mifepristone" (Klitsch, 1990). Which calculates to 3.72% of women in France needed vacuum aspiration after taking the pill.
             Even with such successful test results six months after the public release of RU-486 in France antiabortion action groups ordered it's recall, saying that is was still too unsafe for municipal use. Doctors who administered the drug were shunned along with women who used it. But this ban only lasted one year, and then the French Government reinstated the drug in early 1989. Only this time they offered financial aid for people who couldn't afford it in the past (the average price for a medical abortion was $250) as well as malpractice insurance to back up their decision. This backed the pro-life organizations into a corner because the elements that inhibited some of the women from taking the drug before were no longer an issue. No matter what happened with the abortion, good or bad, the insurance would cover most - if not all - of the costs. After RU-486's re-release in France in the late 1980's, "tests show a staggering success rate for medical abortions, 96%, with side effects that would normally be expected including nausea, vomiting, headache and breast tenderness." (Althaus, 1993).
             Even though RU-486 did so well in France, it was never meant to be used as an alternative to abortion because of the medical repercussions it could cause. The pill's "mother" in essence, the woman who developed RU-486 is named Etienne-Emile Baulieu, "(she) had always envisioned it would be used for birth control. The drug blocks production of the female hormone progesterone, and depending on when and how often a women takes RU-486, it can theoretically halt an eggs release." (Hamilton, 1997). Baulieu also has hopes that it will keep the fertilized egg from attaching to the wall of the uterus.
             The on...