By Ingrid Duran, Director, NRLC Department of State Legislation
A chemical abortion, commonly known as RU-486, occurs when a mother is given a lethal cocktail of two powerful drugs. Mifepristone, typically given at the abortion facility, blocks progesterone, thereby inhibiting the signal to the woman’s body that she is pregnant and shutting down the system supplying nutrients to the child. The second drug, misoprostol, usually taken at home, induces severe cramping and bleeding in order to expel the baby’s tiny body.
Thanks to the ingenuity of pro-life physicians who care for both mother and child, however, there is now hope for those women who change their minds before taking the misoprostol. As you would expect, the abortion industry is furious.
The effort to halt chemical abortion was first launched by Dr. George Delgado and Dr. Matt Harrison, Medical Director and Associate Medical Director of Abortion Pill Reversal, respectively. They have found it is possible to save the unborn baby provided the woman has not taken the second of the two drugs that make up the chemical abortion regime.
Here’s how their technique works. First, they perform an ultrasound to determine that the unborn child is still alive. When this is confirmed, they prescribe large amounts of progesterone to attempt to counter the impact of the mifepristone.
Since 2012, their organization has received thousands of calls from women who had changed their minds, some who indeed turned out to still be pregnant. Over 500 babies have been saved.
Within the last few years, legislation providing information on the possibility of abortion pill reversal (APR) has been introduced in a number of state legislatures and has become law in five states. Typically, the law amends a state’s informed consent law to provide mothers with information about the possibility of halting the chemical abortion process. Customarily the law highly recommends that if a woman wants to offset the effects of the Mifepristone in an attempt to save her baby, she should contact a health care provider immediately.
Arizona was the first state to enact such a law. However, due to a legal challenge and court settlement, that law has been repealed and replaced with a weaker law. Since then Arkansas, South Dakota, and Utah have followed suit.
However, not everyone is happy about the possibility of saving unborn children. Surprise, surprise, pro-abortionists are feigning concern for women!
The pro-abortion media has gone above and beyond in writing articles attacking the abortion reversal process. Many of these radical supporters of abortion use terms like “unproven” and “junk science” and “sham” when describing the abortion reversal process and/or about the successes that Dr. Delgado and Dr. Harrison have experienced. One has to wonder why these so-called proponents of “choice” are so vehemently opposed to the possibility that a mother may change her mind and choose life.
Instead they rely on notorious pro-abortion authors in order to falsely claim that mothers never regret their decision to abort. We know this is a blatant lie because there are countless women who have testified in Congress, across state legislatures, and even within various post-abortion networks about the pain they still carry because they chose to abort.
We also know this is untrue because as noted above, the organization Abortion Pill Reversal has had at least 2,000 women inquire and women have testified that the method works and have the children to prove it.
Other pro-abortion critics claim that chemical abortions often fail if the second drug (misoprostol) isn’t used, claiming the progesterone boost Dr. Delgado and Dr. Harrison prescribe isn’t effective. But there is no inherent danger in supplemental progesterone and other research currently going on is specifically trying to use additional progesterone to prevent miscarriage in vulnerable women.
Some of the same pro-abortion critics also critiqued Dr. Delgado’s case study claiming that the sample size was too small to be considered significant or that there just isn’t enough evidence.
But a study published in April in Issues in Law & Medicine addressed that sample size issue. It followed 754 women who wanted to stop their in-progress chemical abortion. The study reported as many as 68 % of the women who do not take the second drug will carry their babies to term.
Pro-abortionists are determined to increase the number of chemical abortions by means of telemedicine—“webcam abortions—where the abortionist never sees the woman in person. With the number of chemical abortions already rising (the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported the figure at 31% of all non-hospital abortions for 2014), this type of informed consent legislation about APR is more needed than ever.
Don’t we owe it to these mothers to tell them of this possibility? Isn’t that what “choice” is all about? Or is choice only validated when mothers get biased information that offers no hope at all?
The truth is the pro-abortion lobby is trying to cast doubt on the reversal process because they are abortion extremists who believe in the unfettered right to kill unborn children.
The possibility that when told, women may seek life is a sign of hope and a direct threat to their abortion on demand mission.