CV NEWS FEED // YouTube this week corrected the “context” that it added to a pro-life video about chemical abortion pills after 16 attorneys general sent a letter to YouTube’s CEO warning that the false disclaimer is both illegal and dangerous.
“Women deserve to know the truth about the risks posed by abortion drugs, which is why first-hand accounts like the ones ADF posted on YouTube are so vital,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erik Baptist stated on March 6 after the disclaimer was updated.
“Thanks to the leadership of state attorneys general calling out false information, YouTube has corrected its previously misleading notice,” Baptist added.
Non-profit legal organization ADF posted a video on YouTube about a pregnant mother who took chemical abortion drugs at home and suffered “excruciatingly” from their effects. No doctor or professional helped her with the self-administered abortion.
YouTube flagged the video and added a notice providing “context” about abortion. The original notice read: “An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo or fetus and placenta from the uterus. The procedure is done by a licensed healthcare professional.”
On March 4, 16 attorneys general wrote to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan warning that the disclaimer is false and must be changed.
The first notice YouTube added to the video “minimizes and downplays some of the serious risks of abortion drugs,” wrote Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird in the March 4 letter signed by 15 other AGs. “The last sentence of the notice is both false and misleading. It suggests that chemical abortions are performed by trained professionals. They are not.”
The notice “misleads women seeking information about abortion drugs, potentially endangering their lives,” Bird wrote. “We demand that you remove or correct the notice immediately.”
Shortly after the letter was sent, YouTube updated the notice to read:
An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. It can be done two different ways: Medication abortion, which uses medicines to end the pregnancy. It is sometimes called a “medical abortion” or “abortion with pills.” Procedural abortion, a procedure to remove the pregnancy from the uterus. It is sometimes called a “surgical abortion.”
In a chemical abortion, pregnant women are given a two-pill regimen, consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone blocks progesterone from the unborn child, starving and suffocating him or her to death. Twenty-four to 48 hours later, the mother takes misoprostol “to induce uterine contractions strong enough to expel the dead child and placenta,” according to a United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ explainer.
YouTube’s first notice “contains false information about a central issue in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court,” Bird added, referencing the upcoming SCOTUS case about that will determine the availability of the chemical abortion pill mifepristone.
The case is U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on March 26.
ADF is representing the plaintiffs in the case, who oppose the FDA’s hasty approval of the dangerous mifepristone abortion drug and the removal of safeguards in the drugs’ administering.
“Because of the FDA’s reckless decision to end the requirement that chemical abortions be done by a licensed healthcare professional, women are now typically on their own when taking the drugs, without any direct medical supervision,” Baptist added in his March 6 statement:
That is why the YouTube disclaimer was flatly wrong and perfectly illustrates why we are suing the FDA on behalf of four medical associations, their members, and four doctors. The agency has discontinued virtually all safety protocols on abortion drugs, jeopardizing the health and safety of women.
