French scientist Étienne-Émile Baulieu, inventor of the abortion pill, dies

French scientist Étienne-Émile Baulieu, inventor of the abortion pill, died this Friday (30) at the age of 98 at his home in Paris, his wife announced to AFP.

Baulieu, a physician and researcher, became world-renowned for the scientific, medical and social importance of his work on the role of steroid hormones.

“Her research was guided by her attachment to the advances made possible by science, her commitment to women’s freedom and her desire to enable everyone to live better and longer,” her wife, Simone Harari Baulieu, said in a statement.

Born on December 12, 1926, in Strasbourg, Etienne Blum adopted the name Émile Baulieu when he joined the Resistance against the Nazi occupation, at just 15 years old.

Doctor of Medicine (1955) and Science (1963), he founded a research unit at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research dedicated to hormones. He directed the unit until 1997, although he worked there until the end of his career.

Baulieu rose to fame when he developed RU 486 in 1982. This abortion pill revolutionized the lives of millions of women around the world by offering them the possibility of voluntarily terminating pregnancies with medication.

The Frenchman faced harsh criticism and threats at the time.

Baulieu was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit, two important French distinctions, and received numerous decorations.

In the United States, he was awarded the Lasker Award, the highest American scientific distinction, considered a potential precursor to the Nobel Prize for those who receive it.

His research on DHEA, the hormone whose secretion and anti-aging activity he had discovered, led him to work on neurosteroids (nervous system steroids).

He has also developed a treatment for depression, a clinical trial of which is currently underway at several university hospitals.

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