Laudable Move by RU-486 Maker

Long years of effort by abortion rights groups appear to have paid off Monday when the European manufacturer of RU-486 announced that it has donated the U.S. patent rights for the abortion pill to the not-for-profit Population Council. That opens the door for widespread use of this valuable but controversial drug in this country.

This is good news. And coming just days after the Senate gave final congressional approval to a bill that makes it a federal crime to blockade abortion clinics or to harass clinic staffs or patients, it signals a sea change in abortion politics.

The constitutional right of women to terminate a pregnancy generally has been protected in recent decades. But the ability of women to exercise that right has been substantially eroded through violence at clinics, gag rules on abortion counseling and restrictions on public funding. Anti-abortion activists had long threatened to boycott other Roussel Uclaf products if the company supplied the drug for testing in the United States. But with the donation of the patent rights, the New York-based Population Council can begin clinical trials in the fall. Studies abroad have found it cheaper than and as effective as a surgical abortion. Formal approval by the Food and Drug Administration to market the drug in the United States could come six months after the federal agency receives an application from an interested manufacturer.

Women who decide to have an abortion should not be blocked from exercising that legal right, and in the next few years RU-486 could provide an important non-surgical alternative.