by Laura Fraser

About the author: Journalist Laura Fraser writes the Well-Being column for Mother Jones.

Anti-abortion protesters, gun-shy drug companies, and timid politicians have stymied RU 486 for a decade....

In 1988, Mother Jones announced a “birth control breakthrough” on its cover, describing the development of a promising new “abortion pill”—RU 486—and asking why, if it worked so well for French, Chinese, Swedish, and Dutch women, it wasn’t available in the United States. The physicians, feminists, and family-planning experts I interviewed then predicted that, given the political climate surrounding abortion, it could be 10 years before RU 486, or mifepristone, would be approved for use by American women.

Eleven years later, U.S. doctors still can’t prescribe the drug. But if all goes smoothly, they...