and manufacture the pill for the whole world. A third suggestion was that WHO, which had sponsored many tests of RU-486's safety and effectiveness, distribute the pill (Greenhouse, 1988a). But WHO would face problems in manufacturing and marketing on such a scale, asserted José Barzalatto, then director of WHO human reproduction research, “because we are not a pharmaceutical company” (Greenhouse, 1989b). In addition, obtaining the patent from Roussel would not be easy because of the drug's promising uses in other areas, such as fighting breast cancer or dilating the cervix to avoid cesarean sections in cases of prolonged labor.

There was also the chance Roussel might change its mind. Pierre Joly, Roussel's vice chairman, hinted at this the day following the announcement: “We might resume distribution of RU-486 if the atmosphere becomes peaceful again” (Greenhouse, 1989b). Within the French government, efforts were under way to force Roussel to make such a change. Mich èle Barzach, former health minister under conservative Jacques Chirac, was the first to attack the company's decision and to criticize the Socialist government for remaining silent (Izbicki, 1988). Two days later, Claude Evin summoned Joly to his office. Evin was angry that the company had pulled RU-486 only four weeks after the government had defied the Church and antiabortion pressure groups and approved the drug. “[I am] astonished by such a decision, which is contrary to the industrial policy pursued up to now on this product,” he said (PR Newswire, 1988a).

Evin feared that if the antiabortion movement was triumphant in its crusade against Roussel, it would begin fighting for a repeal of the 1975 French law legalizing abortion. The government did not wish to enter such a fray. Bitter controversy had preceded passage of the 1975 law, as well as the 1984 Socialist government decision to reimburse abortion costs under the national health plan (Naughton, 1988a). “I was doing what I could,” said Evin, “to make sure France did not surrender to pressure groups animated by archaic ideologies” (Greenhouse, 1989a). Roget Bouzinac, a distinguished French commentator writing in Le Var, pointed to another aspect of the controversy. Noting the violence surrounding “The Last Temptation of Christ” and RU-486, he asked whether France might not be on the verge of another religious war. “We must be careful that the affair of this abortion pill does not recreate the anti-clerical movement which at another period did our nation so much harm” (Izbicki, 1988).

Evin told Joly that, if necessary, the French government would use its status as 36 percent owner of Roussel (and some special provisions of French law) to transfer the patent to another company in order to serve the public good. In light of this threat, Roussel issued a statement