Each November the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Office for Respect Life Ministries hosts a November training opportunity for the staff and volunteers in our Pregnancy Care Resource Center Coalition. This month we hosted Christa Brown (BSN, RN, LAS) the Senior Director of Medical Impact at Heartbeat International, who shared a detailed presentation on the Abortion pill. She explained the science behind the pill, the ways it can be attained, its effects and trauma, and the way it can be reversed. Due to the rising number of chemical abortions in recent years, this workshop was highly attended, with nearly 60 people attending the Cincinnati session and almost 100 attending the Dayton/Miami Valley session.
Without repeating the entire presentation, I’d like to highlight a few topics I found particularly poignant. First, Christa did an excellent job explaining what exactly the “abortion pill” is. As many of our readers likely know, the abortion pill is two separate drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone is taken first; this drug blocks the naturally occurring progesterone hormone, a hormone that helps the pregnancy grow. With the progesterone blocked by mifepristone, the fetus will begin to die. The next pill taken is the misoprostol, a drug that empties the uterus, expelling the dead or dying fetus.
Christa taught us that misoprostol is technically considered ‘off-label’ for abortion use. This means that the FDA has not approved misoprostol for the purpose of chemical abortions, they have only approved it for the prevention and treatment of nsaid-induced gastric ulcers. Despite this off-label warning, Planned Parenthood continues to promote and prescribe misoprostol for use in chemical abortions, claiming it is completely safe, despite the laundry list of severe side effects that accompany it, a list the drug’s own manufacturer warns against. If we are feeling charitable we could perhaps credit Planned Parenthood for at least listing some of these risks on their website, but they quickly lose all credibility when they go on to insist that the abortion regimen is “very safe” going so far as to say it’s safer than Tylenol and Penicillin.
Sadly, the reality is that mifepristone and misoprostol are not safe drugs. A recent study showed that the risk of complications associated with the abortion pill regimen is four times higher than complications associated with surgical abortion. Additionally in 2018 the FDA released data that showed thousands of adverse effects occurred following the use of these drugs, including 768 hospitalizations and 24 maternal deaths since 2000.
Luckily Christa’s presentation was not all doom and gloom, there is hope to be found in the abortion pill reversal process. Christa works in the abortion pill rescue network, a place where she comes face to face with women who regret their chemical abortions and actively search for ways to reverse its effects. By calling, texting, or chatting online via the abortion pill reversal network, Christa gets women connected to resources to aid them in the abortion reversal process whenever possible.
Abortion pill reversal is only possible if the woman has only taken the first pill of the regimen, mifepristone. As we discussed above, mifepristone blocks the progesterone hormone, essentially causing the fetus to slowly starve to death. If a woman calls APR soon after taking mifepristone (within 24 up to 72 hours) and has not yet taken the misoprostol pill (the expelling agent) there is a chance that the abortion process may be reversed by introducing progesterone back into her system. Progesterone can be taken orally as a pill and can therefore be prescribed by the doctors in the APR network and picked up at a local pharmacy near the woman in need. The progesterone prescription costs anywhere from 15 to 40 dollars and financial aid is available to those in need.
Despite what the media would have us believe regarding abortion pill reversal, Christa shared data from the APRN which reveals abortion pill reversal is safe (both for the fetus and mother), and successful (success rates range between 64%-68%). Many pro-abortion advocates commonly cite a 2019 study by the University of California as evidence that abortion pill reversal is dangerous. The study was shut down prematurely because “severe hemorrhage requiring ambulance transport to hospital occurred in three patients”. They claim the reversal process is what caused these severe side effects. However, if you carefully read what happened in the study, you’ll notice that only one of the three hemorrhaging patients received progesterone. All three of them did however receive the first dose of the abortion pill regimen, mifepristone. Isn’t it much more likely (and logical) to assume the severe hemorrhaging was caused by the mifepristone, a drug that the FDA explicitly warns can cause “serious and potentially life-threatening bleeding…following a…medical abortion”. No such warning of that type appears in the FDA’s data regarding progesterone, making it obvious which drug was likely responsible for those life threatening symptoms.
Christa’s presentation went on to chronical the ways chemical abortion trauma affects women, and the ways we can support them, mentioning of course the important work Project Rachel provides in this regard. All in all, our pregnancy resource center staff and volunteers found this workshop to be extremely fruitful. All their responses to this workshop, gathered via our office’s anonymous evaluation form, were positive. Many of them even commented that this presentation was eye opening for them, having previously been unfamiliar with how chemical abortions and abortion reversals worked. Some even stated that knowing more about the medical and mental health risks associated with chemical abortion would greatly enhance their client interactions moving forward. We were thankful for the opportunity to spend the day learning how best to serve the needs of the most vulnerable among us.
By: Emily Branscum
Help is available 24/7 through the Abortion Pill Reversal network and can be reached via their website, or phone number 1-877-558-0333.
