For generations, pregnant women have dosed themselves with unpalatable, hazardous potions in desperate, largely unsuccessful efforts to rid their bodies of unwanted fetuses. Among the dubious household remedies: swallowing narcotics made from hempseed, douching with the caustic disinfectant potassium permanganate, and even quaffing gin laced with iron filings. Such medieval measures are now giving way to a modern alternative: drugs that can induce abortion. Approved in pill form abroad, they appear to have what their noxious predecessors lacked: safety and efficacy. They are not, however, lacking in controversy.
China and France last month became the first nations to sanction the use...