Abortion Pill is Not Safer Than Viagra or Penicillin, Study Shows It Causes 33 Times More Complications

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Apr 21, 2023   |   8:49AM   |   Washington, DC

The abortion pill is not safe. It isn’t safer than Tylenol or penicillin or Viagra or any other drugs or medical procedures that it’s compared to.

Because the very purpose of the abortion drug mifepristone is to kill unborn babies – unique, living human beings who depend on their mothers for survival.

But claims that mifepristone is safe for mothers also have been widely overblown, and those who point this out frequently get ignored or shut down, as one did on CNN this week.

Speaking with CNN anchor Abby Phillip on Tuesday, conservative commentator Alice Stewart defended pro-life doctors who are suing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over its approval of the abortion drug.

These doctors are “concerned with the safety of women” and believe the FDA failed to properly study the harmful side effects of mifepristone, Stewart said.

“Oftentimes, the injuries to the mother are not reported because they are not required to go to seek a doctor’s care or go to the emergency room,” she added. “So a lot of the injuries to the mothers are unreported for that very reason.”

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But Phillip interrupted her, saying: “I have to stop you there because, I mean, we do have the data on this. It is a very safe drug.”

Then, Phillip shared data showing an average of five deaths per 1 million due to the abortion drug, claiming it is safer than more common drugs like penicillin and Viagra.

But her claim is not true.

Millions of unborn babies have been killed with the abortion drug mifepristone, or RU-486, since its approval under the Clinton administration in 2000. Currently, it is used for almost half of all abortions in the U.S., killing approximately 400,000 unborn babies every year, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Research does not bear out the claim that abortion drugs are safe for mothers either.

Comparing studies about complications with mifepristone and penicillin, Live Action News found that the abortion drug has a much higher complication rate:

The Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology and Research estimated that only about 0.01% of patients who receive penicillin will experience a true anaphylactic allergic reaction. And a Canadian study of mass antibiotic prophylaxis with penicillin showed that, out of 2,707 individuals receiving the drug, only 5 experienced what could be classified as a serious adverse event. That’s a serious adverse event rate of 0.18%.

The abortion pill, on the other hand, has been shown by even pro-abortion sources to send 6% of the women who take it to the emergency room or urgent care for complications. This is an adverse event rate that is 33 times higher than that of penicillin.

In regard to the pain medication Tylenol, Live Action News recently analyzed other research study and “found an ER and urgent care visit rate of 6%” for women taking the abortion drug, which is “107 times greater than the rate for acetaminophen/Tylenol.”

Other studies and data from abortion groups themselves indicate the risks of the abortion drug are more common than what abortion activists often claim, with as many as one in 17 women requiring hospital treatment. 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.

Similarly, a 2009 study “Immediate Complications After Medical Compared With Surgical Termination of Pregnancy,” in “Obstetrics and Gynecology” found a complication rate of approximately 20 percent for the abortion drugs compared to 5.6 percent for surgical abortions. Hemorrhages and incomplete abortions were among the most common complications.

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.

Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case filed by doctors with the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, challenging the FDA’s approval and more recent expansion of the abortion drug mifepristone under Democrat presidential administrations.

The doctors said the FDA failed to study the safety of mifepristone and ignored federal law when it began allowing the drug to be sold through the mail without direct medical oversight. As emergency room physicians and OB-GYNs, the doctors said they have witnessed “the enormous pressure and stress caused by emergency treatment from chemical abortion [abortion drugs] gone wrong.”