Podcast depicts legal drama surrounding RU-486
Seasoned journalist TJ Raphael spent years researching how medication first came to the United States
A compelling new podcast reconstructs how RU-486 came to America and the furor it created among activists on both sides of the abortion debate.
Cover Up: The Pill Plot features interviews with former NOW President Patricia Ireland, Feminist Foundation President Eleanor Smeal, and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry. It’s supplemented by archived audio of Lawrence Lader, a trailblazing abortion rights activist for nearly 50 years.
The story centers on how Lader convinced 29-year-old Leona Benten to go to Europe for an abortion pill that would be turned over to customs upon return so that pro-choice activists could begin the fight to get abortion medication available to all women in America. Before that, despite being used in other countries, the Food and Drug Administration hadn't approved RU-486, now known as mifepristone.
TJ Raphael, a journalist who has covered reproductive issues and politics for ten years, produced the series that is available on several platforms, including Spotify. The story topic came to her after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“I found this a wild story,” Raphael said. “It was really just kind of a footnote in an academic article. Once I started really trying to learn more about this story, I realized I had stumbled on to something quite big that I was surprised I hadn't heard about before.”
The podcast fascinated me because it shed light on how Terry and others experienced what I had researched from a pro-choice perspective. It was also intriguing to learn more about Lader and his backstory.
From women I’ve spoken to, he was a polarizing figure to some extent because some had thought he was a great pioneer and champion while others thought he was egotistical. The same thing happened with Bill Baird, whom I interviewed for my forthcoming book. The podcast also goes into the conflict between Lader and the Population Council, responsible for producing the American version of RU-486.
The climate at the time of Benten’s involvement was extremely violent. It had followed the Siege of Atlanta and the Summer of Mercy. David Gunn had been murdered in Florida. Feminist leaders suspected a national conspiracy to serve as accessories to antiabortion terrorism.
Raphael described Terry as a charismatic and polarizing figure. He had traveled to various cities while attending his antiabortion rallies to convince preachers and religious leaders to support his side. The more pastors he convinced, the more of the parishioners he got.
“Randall thought if he could convince preachers to get on board with his message, then they would help do the work for him of helping to drive people into the streets to protest abortion in a more aggressive way,” Raphael said.
As with Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe, it was a challenge to find a woman willing to buck with convention to advance abortion rights. They were lucky to find someone like Benten, who has since retreated from the public eye after being threatened and harassed constantly after her case received massive media attention.
“There's not really a huge pool for activists to pull from of people wanting to be the public face of something like an abortion challenge,” Raphael said. And so they do, as we've seen, need to get creative to find that person that's willing to do it.”