RU-486, the controversial French abortion pill touted by pro-abortion groups as being “safe and effective,” is under attack. This time the disparagement is not coming from the pro-life side, but from feminist researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT’s Institute on Women and Technology, recently released a report which uses the findings of every clinical study of RU-486 in the last ten years. The report disclaims the popular assertion by pro-abortion groups, such as Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Rights Action League, that RU-486 should be legalized and has been proven to be “safe and effective.”

The authors of the report, Janice Raymond, Renate Klein and Lynette Dumble, are described by the Boston Globe as being “radical feminists” who support “a woman’s right” to an abortion and rail against “anti-abortion fundamentalism.” They argued in the report that the political climate surrounding the abortion issue makes “pro-choice” groups promote RU-486, even though the drug is more complicated and dangerous than clinical abortion. They concluded that there is “an urgent need for more informed feminist discussion” of the drug.

This serious doubt cast by ardent feminists comes in the wake of a congressional House hearing on speeding the U.S. approval of the abortion pill. Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) chaired the four-hour hearing of pro-abortion special interest group “experts” on RU-486. Several of the witnesses testified that blocking the abortion pill is discrimination against women.

The lone dissenting opinion heard by the committee was offered by Richard Glasgow of the National Right to Life Committee, who testified that RU-486 was far from safe. Rep. Wyden berated Glasgow and dismissed his evidence as his “constitutional right to be wrong.”