The National Post reported earlier this week on a cancelled study of the abortion pill reversal procedure. Unfortunately, the outcome leaves us with many unanswered questions, and highlights the callous manner in which pregnancy is viewed and the disrespect shown to pre-born children.
The study, which only involved a dozen participants, was abruptly halted after three women were hospitalized due to severe bleeding. The National Post summarizes the researchers’ conclusions by saying that “doctors are warning women who start, but then stop, a medical abortion may be at risk for serious blood loss.”
But wait. What about women who start, and then continue, a medical abortion? You guessed it: serious blood loss. And it’s not just blood, but also the tissue of a pre-born child’s developing body being expelled. These women went to the hospital because they were part of a study and unsure what pills they had just taken, but most aborting women don’t seek medical help, thanks to excellent marketing by abortion pill advocates who want women to “handle abortion themselves.”
The study participants who experienced heavy blood loss didn’t know if this much bleeding was normal. It certainly can be, especially at the gestational stage these women’s children were. Two of the three women who went to the hospital needed no treatment to stop the bleeding; it was allowed to run its course in aborting the unwanted pregnancy. This study is being used as an attempt to stir up fear around abortion reversal, but what it should be doing is pointing a finger at the risks of medical abortion and the ethics of the abortion industry.
The study and its issues
Let’s take a moment to consider the study. Dr. Creinin and his colleagues say it was aimed at testing the effectiveness of oral progesterone as an effective way to stop abortion after a woman has taken mifepristone, the first pill in the two-step process of medical abortion. The abortion pill reversal is promoted by the pro-life community as an option for women who change their mind about going through with their abortion, with evidence that it may be effective just over half the time.
Women in this study had surgical abortions booked, but agreed to take a dose of mifepristone followed 24 hours later by regular doses of progesterone until their planned abortion about 2 weeks later. Participants exited the study earlier if the mifepristone resulted in abortion, which it is known to do on its own in a high percentage of cases.
The study is deeply unethical in its willingness to experiment on human beings. Whether they are recognized by law or not, a fetus is a unique, living human being. It is unclear whether they feel pain at this stage of pregnancy. Deliberately subjecting a pre-born child to more than one abortion attempt is barbaric, and reminiscent of the horrible experiments on others deemed “non-human” in the past.
Women signed up to participate in the study with the expressed intent (and pre-booked appointment) to abort their child. They were willing to delay the abortion solely for the purpose of allowing experimentation on their pre-born child. Each of the woman in this small study, even those where the reversal was successful and the pregnancy saved, followed up with a surgical abortion.
No one participating in this study had any intention of keeping their baby, even if the reversal was successful. To use blood loss, the known effect of medical abortion, to fearmonger against the possibility of halting an abortion if a woman changes her mind, is disingenuous, and reveals the appalling, conscienceless ethics applied to the human rights of pre-born children.