In 1992, the FDA under David Kessler, to great fanfare and cheer from feminist activists, banned silicone breast implants in response to national hysteria fueled by daytime talk show allegations of leakage and rupture. Even then, the FDA did not justify this ban on the basis that these fears were well-founded or even plausible—they were not—but hid behind its determin[ation] that the manufacturers had not adequately addressed public concerns about certain complications.
This is a strange justification, for while the FDA has statutory authority to require manufacturers to prove safety and effectiveness, as they had done for silicone breast implants, the FDA statutes impose no obligation on the manufacturers to successfully quell unreasoning public panics. The manufacturers had, of course, tried to do so, but failed because their arguments were universally dismissed by all right-thinking people as just one more proof that manufacturers place profits ahead of people. (In 2006, the FDA quietly reversed the baseless ban, but never admitted error or apologized to the millions of women who, denied their first choice by the FDA, had to make do with inferior saline implants.)
In 1992, as today, one of the great issues of public debate was abortion. And the same feminists who so loudly cheered the FDA were apt to march for abortion-rights under banners reading:
For some reason (lack of space?), these banners always omitted the agreed proviso But by all means keep them firmly planted on our mammaries!
