Baulieu was demonized by US anti-abortion teams who accused him of inventing a ‘loss of life tablet’
French scientist Etienne-Emile Baulieu, the inventor of the abortion tablet, died on the age of 98 at his dwelling in Paris on Friday, his spouse informed AFP.
The physician and researcher, who achieved worldwide renown for his work that led to the tablet, had an eventful life that included combating within the French resistance and turning into associates with artists reminiscent of Andy Warhol.
“His research was guided by his commitment to the progress made possible by science, his dedication to women’s freedom, and his desire to enable everyone to live better, longer lives,” Baulieu’s spouse Simone Harari Baulieu stated in an announcement.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to his life, calling him “a beacon of courage” and “a progressive mind who enabled women to win their freedom”.
“Few French people have changed the world to such an extent,” he added in a publish on X.
Baulieu’s most well-known discovery helped create the oral drug RU-486, also referred to as mifepristone, which offered a protected and cheap different to surgical abortion to hundreds of thousands of ladies the world over.
For many years, he pushed governments to authorize the drug, going through fierce criticism and typically threats from opponents of abortion.
When Wyoming turned the primary US state to outlaw the abortion tablet in 2023, Baulieu informed AFP it was “scandalous”.
Then aged 96, Baulieu stated he had devoted a big a part of his life to “increasing the freedom of women,” and such bans had been a step within the mistaken route.
‘Fascinated by artists’
Born on December 12, 1926 in Strasbourg to Jewish dad and mom, Etienne Blum was raised by his feminist mom after his father, a physician, died.
He modified his title to Emile Baulieu when he joined the French resistance towards Nazi occupation on the age of 15, then later including Etienne.
After the struggle, he turned a self-described “doctor who does science,” specializing within the subject of steroid hormones.
Invited to work in the US, Baulieu was observed in 1961 by Gregory Pincus, often called the daddy of the contraceptive tablet, who satisfied him to deal with intercourse hormones.
Again in France, Baulieu designed a strategy to block the impact of the hormone progesterone, which is important for the egg to implant within the uterus after fertilization.
This led to the event of mifepristone in 1982.
Dragged earlier than the courts and demonized by US anti-abortion teams who accused him of inventing a “death pill”, Baulieu refused to again down.
“Adversity slides off him like water off a duck’s back,” Simone Harari Baulieu informed AFP.
“You, a Jew and a resistance fighter, you were overwhelmed with the most atrocious insults and even compared to Nazi scientists,” Macron stated as he offered Baulieu with France’s high honor in 2023.
“But you held on, for the love of freedom and science.”
Within the Sixties, literature fan Baulieu turned associates with artists reminiscent of Andy Warhol.
He stated he was “fascinated by artists who claim to have access to the human soul, something that will forever remain beyond the reach of scientists.”
Alzheimer’s, melancholy analysis
Baulieu saved going into his Parisian workplace effectively into his mid-90s.
“I would be bored if I did not work anymore,” he stated in 2023.
His latest analysis has included looking for a strategy to stop the event of Alzheimer’s illness, in addition to a therapy for extreme melancholy, for which scientific trials are presently underway the world over.
“There is no reason we cannot find treatments” for each sicknesses, he stated.
Baulieu was additionally the primary to explain how the hormone DHEA secreted from adrenal glands in 1963.
He was satisfied of the hormone’s anti-aging talents, however medicine utilizing it solely had restricted results, reminiscent of in skin-firming lotions.
In the US, Baulieu was additionally awarded the celebrated Lasker prize in 1989.
After his spouse Yolande Compagnon died, Baulieu married Simone Harari in 2016.
He leaves behind three kids, eight grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren, in line with the assertion launched by his household.
© 2025 AFP
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