Some medical practitioners offer a treatment to attempt to counteract the effects of mifepristone. They believe that if administered in time after a woman has taken the first drug in the abortion pill regimen, this treatment could potentially save the life of a preborn child. (The treatment is not likely to be effective if administered after the second drug, misoprostol, is taken.)
This treatment involves the administration of progesterone, a necessary and natural pregnancy hormone required to sustain life, in an attempt to outcompete the progesterone-blocking effects of mifepristone. For decades, medical practitioners have safely prescribed progesterone to women at risk of miscarriage.
According to a 2024 primer from the Charlotte Lozier Institute:
Drs. George Delgado, Matt Harrison, and Mary Davenport have conducted studies providing evidence for the efficacy of abortion pill reversal. The most notable study in 2018 found that when following 754 patients who decided to attempt to reverse a drug-induced abortion, around 66% had continuing pregnancies when using the most effective regimens of intramuscular progesterone and high-dose oral progesterone within 72 hours of taking mifepristone.
In women who had reversals as well as subsequent follow-up after delivery, there were seven reported birth defects. The associated rate, 2.7%, is equal to the birth defect rate among the general population, which is approximately 3%. There thus appears to be no increased risk of birth defects, according to Delgado, for babies born after mifepristone reversal.
