Abortion activists could offer women real support when abortions are banned. Data shows many women abort their unborn babies because of financial worries, others are pressured into it. And financial aid and emotional support — what pro-lifers provide every day through pregnancy centers and other organizations – would help more mothers and save their babies’ lives.
But instead, abortion activists turn to more dangerous and illegal abortion methods – and then blame pro-lifers for putting women’s lives in greater jeopardy.
This is what they are preparing to do if a federal judge agrees with doctors that the abortion drug mifepristone is dangerous and should be pulled from the market.
CBS News reports some abortion groups are preparing to sell misoprostol, an FDA-approved ulcer drug, off-label to abort unborn babies if mifepristone gets banned.
First approved under the Clinton administration, mifepristone is used to abort unborn babies up to about 10 weeks of pregnancy – although some abortionists use it later. It works by blocking the hormone progesterone and basically starving the unborn baby to death. Typically, abortion groups also prescribe a second drug, misoprostol, to induce labor and expel the baby’s body.
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Melissa Grant, chief operations officer of the abortion group Carafem, told CBS that the two drugs “work very well together” to complete an early abortion, but misoprostol alone takes longer.
“It is a process, and people have to be willing to invest the time it takes to complete the process,” Grant said.
Hers is one of the few groups that has admitted to already doing misoprostol-only abortions. According to the report:
Carafem has been offering medication abortions using only misoprostol since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic heightened the need for easier accessibility to the abortion pill. At the time, Grant said more than 80% of carafem’s clients elected to use misoprostol only when given the choice.
“It became an important option during the pandemic” and allowed carafem the opportunity to provide better access to certain populations, she said.
Other abortion groups also insisted the off-label use of the ulcer drug is “safe and effective,” including Dr. Julie Amaon, medical director of Just The Pill, which sells abortion drugs online.
“We know that there’s just a slight difference in efficacy, but it’s still safe and effective,” Amaon told CBS. “The biggest thing that we’re preparing for is the mass confusion that happens after most of these decisions come down.”
Meanwhile, the National Abortion Federation, which used to recommend mifepristone and misoprostol together, recently changed its recommendation to advise, “where mifepristone is either not legally available or inaccessible, misoprostol-alone regimens or other evidence-based regimens may be offered.”
The largest abortion chain in America, Planned Parenthood, told Jezebel that it also will sell misoprostol alone if the judge blocks mifepristone as an abortion drug.
Despite the “safe and effective” claims, it is telling that most abortion groups do not currently prescribe the drug on its own and the FDA does not approve it as an abortion drug.
One, Christie Pitney, a nurse midwife and co-founder of the Abortion Freedom Fund, did admit the drug comes with higher risks. She told Jezebel that misoprostol “can be a bit more of a painful process” and the risks of diarrhea, nausea and fever are higher.
Studies indicate the risks of mifepristone also are more common than what abortion activists often claim, with as many as one in 17 women requiring hospital treatment.
Along with millions of unborn babies’ deaths, the FDA has linked mifepristone to at least 28 women’s deaths and 4,000 serious complications. However, under President Barack Obama, the FDA stopped requiring that non-fatal complications from mifepristone be reported. So the numbers almost certainly are much higher.
Despite the physical risks and the increased likelihood of coercion and abuse, the Biden administration recently began allowing abortion drugs to be sold through the mail without a check-up or in-person contact with the pregnant mother.
In England, which began allowing mail-order abortion drugs around the same time, new investigations show a huge increase in ambulance calls and reports of coercion and abuse. There also have been reports of late-term babies being born alive at home as a result of mail-order abortion drugs because their mothers did not realize how far along they were.
A recent study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that the rate of abortion-related emergency room visits by women taking the abortion drug increased more than 500 percent between 2002 and 2015.
Another new study from the University of Toronto, “Short-Term Adverse Outcomes After Mifepristone–Misoprostol Versus Procedural Induced Abortion,” published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that one in ten women who took the abortion pill had to go to the emergency room, according to Pregnancy Help News.
