Is ‘abortion pill reversal’ really a ‘scary new tactic,’ or do abortion supporters just fear its implications?

For some inexplicable reason, abortion advocates cannot stand the idea of “abortion pill reversal.” The stunning new medical advancement allows women who have taken the first dose of the abortion pill regimen (and regret it) to potentially stop the abortion and save their baby. As people who like to call themselves “pro-choice,” you’d think this would be a relatively unoffensive procedure; after all, it gives women more choices, which is what abortion advocates claim to be fighting for. Right?

Wrong. The battle over “abortion pill reversal” reveals that this isn’t about promoting choice; it’s about promoting abortion itself.

Glamour magazine recently published an article referring to abortion reversal as a “scary new tactic” from “anti-abortion activists.”

“Medical abortions have given more women freedom to terminate their pregnancies — though access to the abortion pill also has faced plenty of limitations — and as a result, the anti-abortion movement is taking a new approach to further subvert a woman’s right to choose: by propagating the idea that abortion often leads to regret and a medical abortion can easily be reversed,” Maggie Mallon wrote. She then went on to attack the doctor who pioneered the “abortion pill reversal” procedure, Dr. George Delgado. She also argued that feeling regret after taking RU-486, the abortion pill, is extremely rare, and that very few women seek out abortion reversal.

While the idea that women do not regret their abortions is not only false, but based on shoddy science, even if Mallon was correct about few women seeking out abortion reversal, does it really make sense to deprive those women of the option? After all, isn’t this about choice? Or is Mallon actually arguing that women shouldn’t have the option to change their minds?

Ultimately, this is yet another example of the pro-abortion lobby desperately trying to attack a medical advancement that could potentially damage the pro-abortion agenda. This long line of attacks includes trying to prevent women from seeing ultrasounds and even lying about fetal development — attacks which might lead a reasonable person to conclude that pro-abortion activists are first and foremost concerned with not just making sure that abortion remains legal, but that abortion becomes as widespread and commonplace as possible.

While pro-abortion activists try to claim that the treatment is not necessary — that women could just choose to not take the second pill and their babies would not be harmed — the reality of how RU-486 works proves that theory wrong.

Dr. Karen Poehailos is a board-certified family physician who offers “abortion pill reversal,” and spoke to Live Action about the process. “First you have to understand how the pill itself works,” Poehailos said. “It’s a two-step process; the first is mifepristone, and it is an antagonist of progesterone. So it blocks progesterone from getting to the placenta, or it tries to. If you block it, and the progesterone can’t get there, the placenta will begin to break down, and that’s what leads to the death of the baby. It doesn’t actually attack the baby; it’s basically starving the baby out by attacking the placenta. And then 48 hours later, if the abortion hasn’t already been completed, she would take the second pill, which is the misoprostol, which would induce labor to expel the placenta and the baby. Then she is supposed to go back in two weeks to ensure that it was complete.”

Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, also explains the procedure here:

1st Trimester Medical Abortion: Abortion Pills

While the mifepristone will not necessarily cause the woman to expel the body of her dead child on its own, it will lead to the preborn child’s death. This is where the “abortion pill reversal” treatment comes into play. The women are given progesterone, which counteracts the mifepristone and helps the placenta heal. Live Action News has covered the stories of multiple women who have been able to successfully ‘reverse’ their abortions using the “abortion pill reversal” methods.

It’s also important to note that women can — and do — regret their abortions. The pro-abortion lobby frequently cites a debunked study as “proof” that women don’t regret their abortions, but the bulk of medical literature says otherwise. Women who have abortions are at higher risk for numerous mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicidal behavior. It’s not right to pretend that these women don’t exist, simply because they are inconvenient to the pro-abortion agenda.

The simple fact of the matter is that “abortion pill reversal” is not a scare tactic. It gives women options, which is the very thing these pro-abortion activists claim to be fighting for. And if they aren’t looking to promote abortion itself, but merely choice, then what is so wrong with giving women another choice to consider?

Editor’s Note, 7/30/24: This article has been updated to remove links and references to a study that is no longer published at the designated links.