Helping Life Choice

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, launched a study in October 2021 to gauge interest in a so-called “missed period pill.” The study will test the use of the abortive drug misoprostol on 100 women whose periods are up to 14 days late and who don’t want to know if they are pregnant. Participants will give a urine sample before taking the drug, but the researchers will not reveal the results of the pregnancy test, so the patient won’t know whether she aborted her baby. A 2020 study by the pro-abortion group Gynuity Health Projects showed relatively high interest in this sort of disguised abortion option. Forty-two percent of total respondents expressed interest in missed period pills, including 70 percent of women who said they wouldn’t be happy to know they were pregnant. The study noted some women were interested in the pills for “management of abortion stigma.” Abortion groups acknowledge using misoprostol alone is more likely to result in an incomplete abortion—when not all the tissue from the baby or the pregnancy is expelled from the womb. But the lead doctor of this research noted studies show increased dosage increases the likelihood of a complete abortion.

The FDA has not approved the use of misoprostol alone for abortions, making such use off-label. In an official leaflet about the drug, the FDA warns that, although approved for preventing gastric ulcers, misoprostol “can cause abortion (sometimes incomplete which could lead to dangerous bleeding and require hospitalization and surgery).” (World News Group, 10/2021)

A recent peer-reviewed study of Medicaid data from 17 states, released by the Charlotte Lozier Institute in November, highlighted the danger the pills pose to women. It found that women were more likely to end up in the emergency room following a chemical abortion than after a surgical abortion. Even with in-person dispensing requirements in place, the data showed that the rate of Medicaid patients visiting the emergency room within 30 days of a chemical abortion went up 507 percent between 2002 and 2015. “An in-person visit is medically necessary and sound medical practice because it ensures that every woman receives a full evaluation for any contraindications to a medication abortion,” the American Association for Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement, noting that an in-person visit allows abortionists to make sure the woman is not too far along and doesn’t have a potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. It also allows the abortionist to ensure the woman isn’t being pressured into the abortion. (World News Group, 12/2021)

The abortion pill has become the most common means of abortion now. And it is now being dispensed via telehealth appointments or even online from overseas pharmacies. There is tremendous danger in this. A desperate woman may take the abortion pill even though she is beyond the recommended time of 10 weeks into her pregnancy. And since she is not being seen by a health provider or getting an ultrasound to confirm the age and viability of her pregnancy, she can easily lie about the facts. A recent study revealed that for every week beyond the 10-week limit, the danger of death or serious injury to the mother increases by 38%. There is the potential of a great number of women dying from the abortion pills, in addition to their babies. The way we count deaths from abortion may have to change from just counting the baby. (CareNet training on changes since Dobbs, 12/2021)

Women in the United States who undergo a drug-induced abortion are more likely to end up in the emergency room than women who get surgical abortions, according to a new peer-reviewed study from researchers at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. The study, which analyzed Medicaid data from 1999 to 2015 in 17 states where taxpayer dollars paid for abortions, tracked the emergency room visits made by women within 30 days of their chemical or surgical abortions. The authors ascertained which ER trips were specifically abortion-related. (Many of those were incorrectly coded as resulting from miscarriages, likely due to women not revealing their abortions to ER doctors.) Even with the in-person dispensing requirements (which have since been removed), the rate of Medicaid patients ending up in the ER within 30 days of a chemical abortion increased 507 percent from 2002 to 2015, much higher than the increase for surgical abortions. Compared with surgical abortions, the risk of a chemical abortion patient needing to go to the ER for specifically abortion-related reasons was 53 percent higher. (World News Group, 12/2021)

Planned Parenthood opened Kansas’ newest center on June 28, 2022, without anticipating the overturning of Roe v. Wade four days earlier. As nearby states increased legal protections for the unborn, Kansas became an abortion destination for women from across the country. Even with scheduling 25 appointments a day, Planned Parenthood Great Plains says their newest location can only see 10%-15% of patients that call them in person. (This means that this location alone is getting between 150 and 250 calls a day!) Local patients can make midweek appointments. But numbers of clients from nearby states, especially Oklahoma and Texas, continue to increase. In response to this demand from out of state, in December 2022, Planned Parenthood Great Plains officially launched access to telemedicine abortions after a judge blocked a law protecting infants from such abortions one month earlier. (Source: World News Group, 1/2023) We can be sure that similar scenarios are playing out in Maryland and Virginia, and even Pennsylvania and Ohio, because of WV’s increased legal protections.

Women who abort their first pregnancy have, on average, four times as many abortions as women who carry their first pregnancy to term. They also have more pregnancies and 53% more miscarriages but half the number of live births overall. Those are the findings from a new peer-reviewed study published last month in the international journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology. The study adds to a growing body of research contradicting the narrative that abortion is a woman’s gateway to a better life. The lasting effects of aborting a first pregnancy are even more reason to try to reach the young women in our area before they face an unplanned pregnancy or choose to abort their first pregnancy. As the author of the above study noted, “Women who are having a first pregnancy need to understand that the decision that they make influences their entire reproductive history. It’s not one-and-done.” (World News Group, 11/2022)

In August 2022, tech companies Yelp and Google introduced new policies to distinguish pregnancy centers from abortion providers online. Yelp will now include a consumer notice with entries for pro-life pregnancy centers, saying that they “typically provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.” Google will no longer allow pro-life pregnancy centers to show up in the local search results box for queries such as “abortion clinics near me.” (World News Group, 9/2022)

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a patient could only receive a medication abortion (the abortion pills) while under the care of a doctor in person in a clinic. This was because mifepristone was overseen by the REMS program. REMS, Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, is a drug safety program that the FDA can require for certain medications with serious safety concerns to help ensure the benefits of the medication outweigh its risks. The FDA currently has REMS restrictions on only 76 drugs out of the over 20,000 drugs that it has approved. This reveals how dangerous these drugs are when handled in unsupervised situations. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA temporarily removed the REMS from mifepristone “to meet citizens' need for telehealth abortion access”. In December, 2021, the FDA made this change permanent. And, on Tuesday, Jan 3, 2023, the FDA announced that they would allow certified retail pharmacies, from corner drug stores to Walgreens and CVS, to fill prescriptions for mifepristone. Though this change will not take effect in states where abortion is illegal, this does mean that people from banned states could potentially fill their medication abortion prescriptions in neighboring, legal states. (Well + Good website, 1/2023)

The abortion industry describes the abortion pill process as being like having a heavy menstrual period. But many women who have undergone this type of abortion describe it very differently. One woman’s description follows: When she went to Planned Parenthood in November 2005, the staff gave her an ultrasound to check the baby’s gestation, observed her as she took the first set of pills, and sent her home with a brown paper bag containing the rest. They told her it would be like a heavy period. But the day after taking the second set of pills, Wolbert began bleeding severely and experienced both diarrhea and vomiting. For much of the process, she was home alone. She became delirious from pains she later realized weren’t much different from being in labor. At one point, it was so bad that Wolbert called the Planned Parenthood facility that she had gotten the pills from. The staff said what she was experiencing was normal and told her to go the hospital if it got worse. Later, she passed her baby while in the shower. This meant she had to pick it up and dispose of it herself, which she did. She later said, “The home where all this took place, that was once a refuge for me, became a murder scene. What I felt, saw, and touched that day can never be removed from my memory.” Some have described the abortion pills as “a chemical coat hanger,” referring to the dangerous illegal abortions that pro-abortion lobbyists use to justify keeping the procedure legal. And they note that the abortion industry itself is promoting the abortion pill as safe and easy. (World News Group, 5, 2021)

A 26-year-old Newark, N.J., man faced a hefty fine and a possible four-year prison sentence for not seeking medical attention for his infant who survived a late-term, chemically induced abortion last year. Braden Mull and his girlfriend, Kalina Gillum, ordered abortion pills online from a company in India. Gillum allegedly took the pills at 29 weeks of gestation and gave birth to a live baby boy the next day in their Ohio apartment. In the texts between Mull and Gillum during the ordeal, neither suggested getting emergency medical aid for the baby. When he returned home from work, Mull cleaned the bathroom and discarded the baby in a trash bag. Gillum later experienced complications, and Mull rushed her to the hospital, where doctors saw an umbilical cord but no baby. Law enforcement searched the apartment and found the child. Mull pleaded guilty to multiple charges on Tuesday, including child endangerment and abuse of a corpse. Gillum’s trial will take place on Nov. 3. The incident has drawn attention to the dangers of abortion-inducing drugs. Anyone can access these life-ending drugs online. Websites such as Aid Access, started by Dutch abortionist Rebecca Gomperts, illegally sell the pills to women in the United States. Aid Access fulfills orders through a pharmacy in India. In March 2019, the FDA ordered Aid Access to stop mailing the drugs to U.S. women, but the site continues to operate. Unregulated distribution of the pills leads to unsupervised and dangerous abortions for women like Gillum who take the pill too far along in their pregnancies. (World News Group, 11/2020)

Planned Parenthood has an inescapable history of racism. In an article in 1921, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, trumpeted the eugenic goal of reducing unwanted populations through birth control, calling the “unbalance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit’ … the greatest present menace to civilization.” The solution, she said, was to “limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective,” including African Americans. “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,” she wrote to fellow eugenicist Clarence Gamble in 1939. Today, Planned Parenthood’s work continues to disproportionately harm minority communities. The Life Issues Institute documented in 2017 that almost 80 percent of abortion facilities are within 2 miles of minority neighborhoods. Black mothers continue to account for 38 percent of all U.S. abortions, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even though they make up only 13 percent of the population. (World News Group, 7/2020)