By BRIAN CLOWES
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of this article with footnotes, contact him at bclowes@hli.org.)
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The scientific name of the abortion pill RU 486 is mifepristone, which is sold under the brand names Mifegyn, Mifeprix, and Korlym. It imitates progesterone, the hormone that signals the uterus to become receptive to the fertilized egg. Progesterone is necessary for the continuation of a pregnancy; if its levels drop too low, a miscarriage is inevitable. Mifepristone takes advantage of this. It contains a progesterone impostor that “plugs in” to the uterine progesterone receptors, but does not deliver the message that progesterone is supposed to transfer naturally. This type of hormone impostor is commonly labeled an “anti-hormone.”
Once mifepristone has occupied the progesterone receptors, the blastocyst (early developing human being) is denied attachment and simply starves for want of nutrients and oxygen. He or she is expelled after several days. This mechanism of action also works to kill preborn children in the first seven weeks of pregnancy, although abortion clinics exceed this limit regularly and Planned Parenthood does “medical abortions” as late as nine weeks gestation.
Other pro-abortion groups go even further. Women on Waves, for example, says that women can self-administer mifepristone to 12 weeks of pregnancy, a very dangerous practice because mifepristone does not abort ectopic pregnancies.
Mifepristone can be used alone, but is only about 80 to 90 percent effective by itself. When used with a subsequent misoprostol pill, which causes the uterus to expel the preborn child, or with two injections of prostaglandin E or Sulprostone, it is about 95 to 97 percent effective at ending normal pregnancies. However, it does not end ectopic pregnancies.
Misoprostol can also cause abortions by itself; in fact, many abortion pills are just pure misoprostol, often advertised under brand names like Cytotec, Arthrotec, Oxaprost, Cyprostol, Mibetec, Prostokos, and Misotrol. The chemical methotrexate is also a less effective single-drug option.
The third step in the medical abortion process is a follow-up appointment after about two weeks to make certain that the abortion is complete, using either an ultrasound or a blood test. However, those abortion clinics that do schedule this appointment for women report that many of them miss it, meaning that about 3 to 5 percent will be surprised with a continuing pregnancy.
The entire three-visit mifepristone/misoprostol “medical abortion” regimen takes about two to three weeks, and there have been more than two million such abortions done since 1997. In fact, abortion pills will account for almost one of every four abortions in 2015. Therefore, it is inevitable that some women will have second thoughts after taking mifepristone, the first step.
Pro-life physicians have found that higher available levels of progesterone can override the effects of mifepristone and block its anti-hormonal action if administered early enough. In other words, progesterone can be an antidote to the poison of mifepristone, and is more effective the earlier it is given after the mifepristone. The latest that progesterone has blocked the action of mifepristone is three days. The general procedure is to inject the woman with progesterone for three consecutive days, then every other day for two weeks, and then twice a week until the end of the first trimester. A progesterone supplement can also defeat the action of “morning after pills” which include other progesterone blockers like the ulipristal acetate in Ella.
As with any other pioneering surgical or medical procedure, abortion pill reversal started out slowly and carefully. Doctors George Delgado and Mary Davenport were the first to attempt it and publish a study on it. Although the study sample was small, the results were promising: Four of six women who had taken mifepristone delivered healthy babies normally, and the other two miscarried, possibly due to the effect of the misoprostol they had taken.
The experience of several other pro-life physicians is even more promising. Dr. Davenport has administered this reversal procedure to 106 women, and 56 have given birth to normal babies. More than 230 other pro-life ob-gyns all over the world have begun to offer this service. Visit the website www.abortionpillreversal.com for information on how to contact them.
Criticism of Reversals. Not surprisingly, pro-abortionists harshly criticized the pro-life physicians pioneering this procedure. The most vocal critic, Dr. Daniel Grossman, was quoted in several mainstream media articles saying that the report was “very incomplete” and that it “hasn’t even been proven effective.”
These media articles all mentioned that Grossman is an ob-gyn and a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, but failed to reveal that he has also held high positions in Ibis Reproductive Health and the Population Council, both population control and pro-abortion organizations. He is also a regular spokesperson for pro-abortion and population control causes and has written journal articles with such evenhanded titles as “The Public Health Threat of Anti-Abortion Legislation.”
Additionally, he is a leading supporter of dangerous webcam abortions, having written an article entitled “Effectiveness and Acceptability of Medical Abortion Provided Through Telemedicine.”
Apparently such innovations are legitimate for “pro-choice” doctors, even if they endanger the lives and welfare of women. But let a pro-life physician try something new and lifesaving, and suddenly it is “unproven” and potentially dangerous.
The writers of these articles also did not bother to contact Dr. George Delgado, the pioneering researcher for this lifesaving treatment. One would think that, for the sake of completeness, the media would want to hear both sides of a potentially important story. This bias has always been particularly strong when the topic is abortion by pill.
At the very beginning of the battle over RU 486, a survey of more than 200 magazine and newspaper articles found that only nine percent mentioned any of the abortion pill’s numerous and serious complications or side effects; only eight percent quoted any pro-life experts or sources; and a lopsided 96 percent cast the abortion pill in a “very favorable” light.
Marie Bass, former political director of NARAL and a major promoter of the abortion pill, said: “Press coverage really is good, if you think about it — sometimes I worry that it’s almost too good.”
Pro-lifers may wonder why Grossman and other pro-abortionists would be against women changing their minds — in other words, having a choice. Perhaps this is one reason why their movement is now moving away from the “pro-choice” label and more openly supporting abortion as being a positive good for women and society.
Despite all of the propaganda to the contrary, experience has shown that pro-abortionists prefer to leave more control in the hands of physicians and less in the hands of women. Perhaps this is why they fail to condemn — and, in some cases, even support — atrocities such as the Chinese forced abortion program and the decades of India’s forced sterilization camps which have victimized hundreds of thousands of women under filthy conditions.
Third World Women
This dichotomy is so extreme that three women professors wrote a book entitled RU 486: Misconceptions, Myths, and Morals, which describes how the abortion pill increases instead of decreases physician control and how it is dumped on Third World women. In fact, the inventor of the RU 486 abortion pill, Etienne-Emile Baulieu, has said that the abortion pill provides “immense hope” for Third World women.
These are the poor women who too often serve a dual role as guinea pigs and NGO-funded customers for contraceptives and abortifacients that are considered too risky for use by women in the United States.
However, it seems obvious that the main problem for Grossman and his supporters is that mifepristone reversals might make it appear as if some women actually do regret their abortion decision — a fatal blow to the popular pro-abortion propaganda.
He said: “In my experience caring for women seeking abortion, they don’t go into this lightly. They’re very clear about their decision usually when they walk into the clinic and especially after they’ve gotten counseling…regret after an abortion is really rare.”
Maybe — and maybe not. But this main point is this: Shouldn’t those women who do indeed regret their abortion decision — regardless of how rare or how common they happen to be — be empowered to reverse it?
Apparently not in the opinion of Grossman and other pro-abortionists. For them, the only legitimate choice is abortion. In fact, abortionists sometimes exert extreme pressure on women to continue the abortion pill procedure even if their resolve has wavered after the first step. Women who have undergone successful mifepristone reversals have said that Planned Parenthood personnel have told them that, if they did not continue with the misoprostol follow-up, they would deliver deformed babies and suffer severe pain.
It remains to be seen if mifepristone reversal will become a commonly accepted medical practice. Pro-abortionists sometimes claim that a physician cannot be a competent ob-gyn unless he offers all available choices, including abortion. One can use this same logic to reply that, if ob-gyns (including abortionists) do not offer mifepristone reversals, they are not supporting the full range of possible choices themselves.
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