Ru 486 Misconceptions Myths and Morals - ressourcesfeministes

ConclusionInstead, Baulieu uses the term ‘contragestive’ to avoid, as hestates, the negative and guilt-producing associations of theword abortion. He insists that his research ‘is not aimed atgaining women abortions,’ but ‘at helping them controlgestation’ (quoted in Gardner, 1989:6). This is comparableto the reproductive technologists performing the linguisticfeat of turning a less-than-fourteen day embryo into a ‘preembryo’so as to justify embryo experimentation.Doublespeak is an attempt to make the negative appearpositive, as in the claim that RU 486 medicalization isdemedicalization, and strict medical supervision is privacy.Doublespeak also makes the complications appear minimal,or at least tolerable. Finally, doublespeak is a language thatcurbs thinking and acute questioning, as evidenced in thelack of any critical perspective offered by many women’sgroups.There are many reasons why individual women andwomen’s groups have jumped on the RU 486/PGbandwagon. The packaging of the new abortifacient has beenimmensely successful. ‘The very nature of the specializedknowledge and information, the complexity of the technology,the way the ‘advances’ have been publicized in the popularmedia and such places as Science magazine, and the incrediblyslick marketing job which is being done, have had the effectof silencing criticism’ (pers. comm. to JR from Judy Luce,June 1991).Many women’s groups have taken the erosion of women’sright to abortion, as well as the fear of playing into the handsof the right-wing, as incentive enough for promoting RU 486/PG. The philosophy prevails that ‘we’—those who arecommitted to women’s rights—must be for whatever ‘they’—those who are not committed to women’s rights, i.e. the antiabortionists—areagainst. However, this defense of RU 486/PG has been too much defined by a reaction to the rightwing.It has been the purpose of this report to demonstrate that113