Health establishment claims abortion-pill reversal unscientific — fine print suggests otherwise

Democratic officials and various pro-abortion organizations have gone to great lengths to attack abortion-pill reversal, characterizing the life-saving practice as dangerous, unscientific, and ineffective.

A recent report highlighted how the Biden-Harris Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chief among the institutional exponents of this smear, may have unwittingly planted the seed of this narrative's undoing.

The CDC acknowledged in its 2024 U.S. Selected Practice Recommendations for Contraceptive report that medical abortions can be potentially reversed by precisely the means pro-life organizations employ in their rescue efforts — and it is not the first institution to do so.

Mifepristone

To extinguish the lives growing within them, some pregnant mothers take a drug called mifepristone in conjunction with misoprostol up to 10 weeks into their pregnancies.

Mifepristone — which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has indicated is linked to a number of serious adverse events as well as the deaths of dozens of mothers — starves the uterus of progesterone, a hormone required for a pregnancy to continue.

Misoprostal then forces the uterus to contract and expel its contents, including the child, usually within days of starting the medication. The Mayo Clinic noted, however, that sometimes mifepristone tablets are not enough to completely end a pregnancy or clear away human remains. In such cases, surgery is required.

Those mothers who immediately regret taking the abortion pill are not altogether hopeless.

Reversal

Numerous pro-life organizations and health care professionals across the country provide abortion-pill reversals. The reversal process reportedly involves the administration of progesterone to undo the effects of the abortion pill; a follow-up ultrasound to confirm the viability of the baby; and at least two weeks of continued progesterone treatments.

There have, however, been conflicting studies in recent years about whether the use of progesterone actually helps reverse the effects of mifepristone.

'The reversal of the effects of mifepristone using progesterone is safe and effective.'

A 2016 paper published in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, for instance, suggested that the administration of a progestin-based contraceptive — either an etonogestrel implant or depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) injection — on the same day as mifepristone "did not alter the success rates [of the medical abortions]."

Another study published that same year in Obstetrics & Gynecology alternatively indicated that the administration of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), a progestin hormonal medication sold under the brand name Depo-Provera, increased the chances of "ongoing pregnancy."

Pregnancy Help News noted why Depo-Provera would help in this regard:

With an increased concentration of progesterone, such as the progestin in DepoProvera, the mifepristone is quickly displaced from those receptors. When providing APR, prescribers offer supplemental bio-identical progesterone, which is similar to what the mother’s body produces. This treatment works rapidly to fight the effects of mifepristone blockage.

In 2017, a case report published in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Contraception & Reproductive Health Care concluded, "Progesterone use in early pregnancy is low risk and its application to counter the effects of mifepristone in such circumstances may be clinically beneficial in preserving her threatened pregnancy."

In 2018, a study published in the peer-reviewed professional journal Issues in Law & Medicine claimed, "The reversal of the effects of mifepristone using progesterone is safe and effective."

Admissions

Pregnancy Help News' Christina Brown highlighted a telling admission in a recent CDC report concerning progestin-only injectable contraceptives, such as Depo-Provera.

Under the section, "Special Considerations," there is a subsection titled "Postabortion (Spontaneous or Induced)." There, the CDC states:

After a first trimester medication abortion that included mifepristone, concurrent administration of DMPA with mifepristone might slightly decrease medication abortion effectiveness and increase risk for ongoing pregnancy (U.S. MEC 2) (1). Risk for ongoing pregnancy with concurrent administration of DMPA with mifepristone versus DMPA administration after abortion completion should be considered along with personal preference and access to follow-up abortion and contraceptive care.

Brown noted that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, another fierce critic of abortion reversals, also appears to have admitted that DMPA can save some babies' lives.

In an October 2020 practice bulletin, ACOG stated, "DMPA injection at the time of mifepristone administration may slightly increase the risk of an ongoing pregnancy."

Despite ample evidence that the administration of progesterone during pregnancy is safe — it is, after all, usually administered during the IVF process as well as to prevent preterm birth in singleton pregnancies — and its constituents' ostensible acknowledgments that reversal is possible, the American health establishment nevertheless appears committed to denying remorseful mothers the choice of saving their babies.

Criticism

The ACOG states on its website, "Facts are important, especially when it comes to policies and discussions that impact patients. Claims regarding abortion 'reversal' treatment are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards."

The ACOG notes further that while the "concurrent administration of DMPA may slightly decrease the effectiveness of mifepristone for medication abortion, the results do not demonstrate that DMPA 'reverses' medication abortion."

The ACOG has dutifully furnished leftists with the perceived credibility they need to target pro-lifers.

When New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Heartbeat International and 11 pro-life pregnancy organizations in May for promoting abortion-pill reversal, she cited the ACOG's concerns.

"Abortions cannot be reversed. Any treatments that claim to do so are made without scientific evidence and could be unsafe," said James. "Heartbeat International and the other crisis pregnancy center defendants are spreading dangerous misinformation by advertising 'abortion reversals' without any medical and scientific proof."

James' lawsuit accused the pro-life groups of fraud for saying that abortion-pill reversal "can reverse the effects of the abortion pill and allow you to continue your pregnancy" — precisely what the CDC's recent report appears to suggest.

James is hardly the first pro-abortion activist to clamp down on those seeking to remedy mothers' regret.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) also sued Heartbeat International last year and a chain of crisis pregnancy centers over their promotion of medical reversal. His lawsuit also referenced the ACOG's claims.

Colorado's Democratic Gov. Jared Polis ratified legislation in April 2023 exposing health care practitioners to discipline if they dared perform an abortion reversal. The law also forced limits on advertising by crisis pregnancy centers.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico blocked the law from taking effect late last year, stating, "The law at issue here runs afoul of these first amendment principles."

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