CV NEWS FEED // The abortion drug mifepristone has been in the spotlight since federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s recent decision to stay the FDA’s rushed approval of the drug. While abortion advocates say mifepristone is perfectly safe, the truth about the abortion-inducing drug is much more worrisome than the media is reporting.
Studies and reports on the safety of mifepristone show a disturbing pattern.
A study in Finland showed that chemical abortions have four times the complication rate of surgical abortions.
Mifepristone has been found to not only kill the preborn child but also to put the mother at serious risk for developing complications, including fatal ones. Yet, this information continues to be widely ignored.
What is Mifepristone?
Mifepristone is the first of two drugs used in chemical abortions and it works by blocking the hormone progesterone from reaching a woman’s uterus. This then breaks down the lining of the uterine wall and kills the unborn child.
The second pill abortionists prescribe to work in tandem with mifepristone is called misoprostol, which induces cramping and bleeding, causing the delivery of the now-dead baby.
Complete Lack of Oversight
Mifepristone was rushed to market by the FDA in 2000 without the proper time or studies to examine its safety. Over half of all U.S. abortions are now committed using the drug.
Between 2000 and 2009, the FDA acquired 6,158 pages of reports of women having adverse reactions to mifepristone during a chemical abortion. These reports found that women who took mifepristone while having an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy were 30% more likely to die than if they had not had abortions. Additionally, 529 “life-threatening” instances and 20 deaths were reported. Yet the FDA did not at any time attempt to revoke or reexamine their approval of the drug that was clearly a hazard to pregnant women.
The peer-reviewed journal Issues in Law and Medicine (ILM) analyzed the FDA’s collection of reports in 2021 and declared that “the FDA AER system is inadequate and significantly underestimates the adverse events from mifepristone.” ILM also warned that “significant morbidity and mortality have occurred following the use of mifepristone as an abortifacient,” and condemned the FDA’s decision not to require ultrasounds before chemical abortions to diagnose ectopic pregnancies.
The FDA initially took a step back in October 2022 when they warned that receiving abortion drugs by mail-order could result in serious side effects for women. However, in 2023 the FDA moved to further loosen restrictions on chemical abortions by working to certify pharmacies like CVS to allow prescriptions for mifepristone both over the counter and by mail.
Risk of Death, Bleeding, and Other Complications
Since the initial approval of chemical abortion in 2000, the FDA reports that at least 28 women in the U.S. have died from the abortion drugs, with several of the deaths resulting from a fatal ectopic pregnancy or from developing sepsis after taking mifepristone.
Women are also not warned of the severe bleeding, and even hemorrhaging, that chemical abortion often induces as the baby is expelled from the uterus. Planned Parenthood advertises that a chemical abortion is “kind of like having a really heavy, crampy period.” Finland, however, has conducted several long-term studies on adverse reactions to mifepristone which show otherwise. One study concluded that over 15% of the women studied experienced severe hemorrhaging after their chemical abortions.
The same study found that the chances of an attempted chemical abortion being incomplete in the end or requiring surgical intervention are much higher, with around 23% of women observed experiencing these effects.
A medical journal performing a study on emergency room admissions following mifepristone use not only found that “chemical abortion is consistently and progressively associated with more postabortion ER visit morbidity than surgical abortion,” but also that many women taken to the ER for chemical abortion complications were falsely misreported as having merely suffered miscarriages.
Similarly, a study examining England and Wales emergency calls reported that between 2019 and 2020, emergency requests for attempted chemical abortions needing follow-up care increased by 54% while ambulance responses went up 19%.
Trauma and Regret
Many women have shared how devastating their chemical abortions were, reporting severe depression, regret, addiction, and suicidal inclinations. You can read several post-abortive testimonies here, where multiple women describe how chemical abortion affected their mental and physical health.
A recent study in the U.S. that examined 114 women who underwent chemical abortions found a majority remembered it as “a traumatic experience that can include physical pain, emotional distress, and lasting feelings of isolation for which they desire help, but most don’t know where to turn.”
This same study also found that 34% of the women studied said that following the abortions their opinions of themselves or their decision changed negatively. One-third of participants said they experienced emotional trauma.
Hope Through Abortion Pill Reversal
Thankfully, hope is not lost. What the abortion industry won’t tell women is that there is a safe and effective way to stop the chemical abortion process through a treatment called Abortion Pill Reversal.
This groundbreaking technology can be effective as long as a woman has not taken the second pill, misoprostol, yet. If a woman takes mifepristone and then regrets her decision, she can contact the abortion pill reversal hotline to immediately schedule a medical appointment to be examined and hopefully begin the process. The reversal works by reintroducing progesterone into the woman to counter the mifepristone and restore nutrition and support to the baby.
In a recent video for CatholicVote’s EDIFY, abortion pill reversal pioneer Dr. George Delgado explained the whole life-saving process and how it gives women a second chance at choice.
In Conclusion
Women are being denied information that can be life-saving for both them and their preborn babies. It is an outrage that women continue to be lied to by the abortion industry and government officials who claim that chemical abortion drugs are safe enough for mainstream use, when all the evidence points to it as a threat to women’s health and safety.
Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling to halt the FDA’s approval of mifepristone was a key move in protecting women and children from a dangerous industry that doesn’t care for them.
