By Dave Andrusko
Dr. Christina Francis
Late yesterday we reported on a vote in the Indiana House in favor of HB 1128, a bill that offers women information about how a chemical abortion they have begun may be reversed. The vote was close, 7-6, but HB 1128 now moves onto the Indiana Senate where the case will be made in even greater detail.
It’s amazing how negatively pro-abortionists and their media colleagues react to what is, after all, a “choice.” A woman has taken the first of the two drugs that compose the “RU-486” abortion technique but has had a change of heart and has chosen to try to save her baby.
HB 1148 requires abortionists to tell women of this possibility.
One of the medical professionals who testified in favor of the bill was Christina Francis, MD, a practicing OB/GYN in Fort Wayne and president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In response to the hostile media treatment of the bill, which included the usual “junk science” slurs, Dr. Francis wrote an op-ed for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel.
Dr. Francis laid the case out in layman’s terms.
“RU-486” refers to two drugs: Mifeprex, taken at the abortion clinic, and then 48-72 hours later, misoprostol, a prostaglandin, typically taken at home.
The former “blocks progesterone, a crucial hormone needed in early fetal development,” the later “causes uterine contractions and expulsion of her developing child,” according to Dr. Francis.
The logic behind abortion reversal is straightforward. Instead of taking the second pill [the misoprostol], the pregnant woman is given large dosages of “progesterone in order to counteract the first pill.”
Opponents argue if a woman has changed her mind, just let her not take the second drug. Somewhere in the vicinity of 30% of babies will not be aborted, they say.
But Dr. Francis and others point to a much, much higher rate of success when the woman is given high dosages of progesterone. As Dr. George Delgado, one of the pioneers of this technique, has said, by using progesterone, they hope to “out-compete [mifepristone] at the receptor.”
Here is how Dr. Francis completed her op-ed:
HB 1128 informs women who are seeking chemical abortions that abortion reversal may be possible, should she change her mind. It places no additional burden on the abortion business. It doesn’t block access to abortion. Abortion pill reversal information empowers women. I urge the Indiana legislature to pass this bill. I’m glad we are talking about this issue. But as we talk about it, your readers deserve to have balanced reporting – a child’s life may depend on it.
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