Pro-life and pro-choice advocates reacted to the death of the “father of the abortion pill,” Étienne-Émile Baulieu, who died Friday at the age of 98 at his home in Paris. 

The French biochemist specialized in hormone research, The New York Times reported Saturday, but his work in the early 1980s in developing RU-486, or mifepristone, brought him into the public eye. Baulieu developed the drug in partnership with the French pharmaceutical company Roussel-Uclaf, where he served as an independent consultant. 

Baulieu seemed to think that the abortion drug would prevent women from dying from botched abortions, telling the journal Science in 1989, “RU-486 can save them.” The scientist pushed for the pill’s approval, both in France and abroad, according to the Times.

Over the years, pro-life advocates have raised concerns about abortion drugs ending the lives of unborn children and negatively impacting the health of pregnant women. Pro-life doctors have also spoken against the distribution of abortion drugs via mail, noting that a medical professional might not have had the chance to screen the pregnant woman for complications like an ectopic pregnancy. 

When asked about opposition to the abortion pill by The New Yorker in 2022, Baulieu replied, “Ideology and machismo, alas, weigh more heavily than rationality and scientific proof.” 

“A method that makes the termination of pregnancy less physically traumatic for women and less risky to their health has always been rejected by pro-lifers: what they really seek is to harm and punish women,” he said. 

Here are seven reactions from pro-life and pro-choice advocates to the death of the “father of the abortion pill.” 

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Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America 

Emily Davis, the vice president of communications at the nonprofit Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, commented on Étienne-Émile Baulieu's passing, saying that the French scientist “leaves behind a legacy of death and deception.”

“His creation of the abortion drug opened the floodgates to today’s abortion industry, where groups like Planned Parenthood now push dangerous abortion drugs through apps and the mail,” Davis told The Christian Post.

“Women and girls are misled into thinking these drugs are as ‘safe as Tylenol,’ despite a growing body of research exposing this lie,” she added. “His passing is a reminder of the urgent need to defund these abortion machines and stand for truth, life and real care for women and children."

The Charlotte Lozier Institute, SBA Pro-Life America’s research arm, published a report in May in the journal BioTech that challenged the claim that abortion drugs are safer than Tylenol. 

"It is essential to state unequivocally that there has never been a single study appropriately comparing the safety of mifepristone and [Tylenol] or any of the common drugs presented in these claims, let alone a 20-year history of 'clear and conclusive scientific evidence' to this end," CLI Director of Life Sciences Carmen Louti stated in the report. 

Loutit argues that "using death counts or death rates from different studies, at different times, and in vastly different populations, they asserted a reductionist definition of safety and compared numbers that are entirely incomparable."