FACT CHECK: Is the abortion pill ‘safer than penicillin’?

During a CNN panel discussion about the abortion pill and the recent litigation concerning it, anchor Abby Phillip cut off conservative commentator Alice Stewart when the latter suggested that there are legitimate safety concerns related to the use of mifepristone, the abortion pill. 

Stewart commented that pro-life advocates do not feel that the testing done by the FDA on the abortion pill was “full and complete and done in the typical way the FDA does this.” Stewart said, “[Pro-lifers] are concerned with the safety of women. Oftentimes the injuries to the mother are not reported because they are not required to go to seek a doctor’s care or go to the emergency room. So a lot of the injuries to the mothers are unreported for that very reason.”

Phillip then cut Stewart off, saying, “So Alice, I mean, I have to stop you there because, I mean, we do have the data on this. It is a very safe drug.” Phillip then asserted that the abortion pill is safer than penicillin or Viagra.

The greatest and most important contrast between the two drugs is that, while penicillin has been estimated to have saved between 80 million and 200 million lives, the abortion pill has ended 5.6 million lives in the U.S. alone. Penicillin is actual medicine designed to cure disease, whereas the abortion pill’s sole purpose is to kill. With that in mind, any side-by-side comparison of the two becomes patently absurd. No drug that is designed to kill can possibly be deemed “safe.”

In addition, Live Action News has previously reported on the common, fallacious, pro-abortion claim that mifepristone is safer than Viagra. But what about penicillin (aside from the abortion pill’s purpose to kill)? 

Penicillin use is associated with some mild side effects such as nausea and diarrhea. Serious side effects generally only occur in people who have a rare allergy to penicillin, and simple skin sensitivity testing can determine whether one has such an allergy prior to administration of the drug.

The Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology and Research estimated that only about 0.01% of patients who receive penicillin will experience a true anaphylactic allergic reaction. And a Canadian study of mass antibiotic prophylaxis with penicillin showed that, out of 2,707 individuals receiving the drug, only 5 experienced what could be classified as a serious adverse event. That’s a serious adverse event rate of 0.18%.

The abortion pill, on the other hand, has been shown by even pro-abortion sources to send 6% of the women who take it to the emergency room or urgent care for complications. This is an adverse event rate that is 33 times higher than that of penicillin.

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