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"Any woman who considers its use cannot proceed without a great deal of prior thought," said Susan Jaffe Tane, chair of the AJC's Commission for Women's Equality. "[But] women who fear surgery or entering clinics that may be picketed by anti-abortion activists now have an alternative."

RU-486 has been available in Europe for about a dozen years, but was blocked from use in the United States.

The approval process is widely believed to have been tainted by contentious abortion politics.