$10-Million Gift to Aid in Push for Availability of Abortion Pill

In an effort to “prevent the impending destruction of women’s rights” and to make a French abortion pill available to American women, Los Angeles activist Peg Yorkin said Wednesday that she is donating $10 million to the Feminist Majority Foundation, which she co-founded.

The gift, which Yorkin said represents roughly one-quarter of her personal assets, was hailed by Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal as “the largest gift in women’s rights history.”

Half of the funds will be used to start an endowment for the organization, and the other half will be earmarked for an effort to make the French abortion pill RU 486 or a similar drug available in the United States, said Smeal and Yorkin, a television producer.

“I’m furious (about) what’s happening in our country. Here we are on the eve of the 21st Century, and the men in power are trying to drive women back to the dark ages,” Yorkin said.

“The United States . . . is now denying women access to a modern medical discovery,” she said at a Washington press conference. “There is no earthly reason why women in this country should not have access to RU 486.”

The drug should be made available in America not only to terminate pregnancies, but also to treat breast and ovarian cancers and the elimination of fibroid uterine tumors, Yorkin said. In human and animal tests in foreign countries, the drug has reduced cancerous tumors or halted their growth, according to a Feminist Majority Foundation report.

RU 486 works by blocking the hormone progesterone. Without progesterone, the lining of the uterus breaks down, causing the expulsion of a fertilized egg.

Smeal said that the drug’s French and German manufacturers, who hold patents on its production, have said that “they don’t think the political climate is right to introduce the drug in the United States.”

With Yorkin’s donation, the foundation intends to launch a campaign to pressure the manufacturers to export the drug to the United States and the FDA to allow its use, Smeal said.

The organization also will try to assemble a consortium of small U.S. pharmaceutical companies to research possible alternatives to RU 486.

If there are not enough interested companies, Smeal said, “We are prepared to do the fund-raising necessary to form a feminist-controlled pharmaceutical (company) that would put research for women’s health first, the bottom line second, and indeed would never play politics with women’s lives.” Such a project could cost between $30 million and $100 million, she said.