Actress Danielle Brooks said she was required to abort because of Accutane. Is this true?

Actress Danielle Brooks has publicly claimed that she was required to agree to have an abortion if she were to become pregnant while taking the acne medication Accutane.

However, the evidence seems to show that women taking Accutane are not required to agree to have abortions.

Key Takeaways:

• Accutane, also referred to by its generic name isotretinoin, is an oral medication used to treat cystic acne; however, it carries serious risks, especially to preborn babies who are at risk of life-threatening birth defects.

• Women who take Accutane must sign the iPLEDGE® REMS, a computer-based risk management system that uses traceable links between prescriber, pharmacy, and wholesaler to control the prescribing, use, dispensing, and distribution of the drug.

• Women who take Accutane must have two negative pregnancy tests before beginning the drug, a negative pregnancy test every month they are on the drug, and a negative pregnancy test in the month after stopping. They also must agree to use two approved forms of birth control or abstain from sex while taking Accutane.

• Actress Danielle Brooks said she didn’t want to have an abortion when she became pregnant on Accutane, but that she was required to because of the contract she signed under Accutane’s REMS guidelines.

• The iPLEDGE® REMS for Accutane does not contain a requirement that women who become pregnant while taking Accutane must have an abortion.

The Details:

The Oscar-nominated Brooks, whose acting work includes “Orange is the New Black” and Broadway’s “The Color Purple,” appeared on the Pregnant Pause podcast on July 24, during which she explained that she had an abortion while she was taking Accutane.

“I, unfortunately, had a lot of acne. I was doing ‘The Color Purple’ on Broadway, and my face was a mess,” she recalled. “I was also doing ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ and there was so much touching on my face, and that caused a lot of acne. I decided to do Accutane, but if you know anything about Accutane, when you are on [the medication], you are not supposed to get pregnant. It’s a requirement. You actually have to sign something saying that you will have an abortion if you get pregnant” (emphasis added).

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Live Action News could find no evidence that women who take Accutane must agree to abort their children if they become pregnant while taking the drug, and nothing in the REMS (risk evaluation and mitigation strategy) paperwork mentions termination or abortion concerning pregnancy while taking Accutane.

What the iPLEDGE® REMS does require is that women have two negative pregnancy tests before beginning Accutane, a negative pregnancy test every month that they are taking Accutane, and a negative pregnancy test in the month after they stop taking Accutane.

The Accutane website states, “Because some of the side effects can be serious, anyone prescribed isotretinoin, including Accutane, must adhere to the steps of the iPLEDGE® REMS.” Those pregnancy tests must be urine or blood tests taken at a medical facility.

The PLEDGE® REMS patient informed consent document also does not mention abortion.

If a woman does learn she is pregnant while on Accutane, she must stop taking the drug and report that pregnancy to the Accutane pregnancy registry. This is so that her pregnancy and the health of her baby can be followed.

According to the guide for women on Accutane, “There is a very high chance that babies born to patients taking isotretinoin will be deformed, born too early, or die before they are born. This can happen even if a patient takes isotretinoin for only a short time.”

However, if a woman is on Accutane and becomes pregnant, her baby could still be born healthy.

Research published in 2007 by JAMA Dermatology reviewed two studies that collected the data from a combined 151 pregnant women in the U.S. whose preborn babies were exposed to isotretinoin.

The first study looked at 115 pregnancies, of which there were 21 miscarriages (18%). Of the 94 live births, 61 were healthy babies (65% of births, 53% of pregnancies), 26 had congenital malformations consistent with isotretinoin embryopathy (28% of births, 23% of pregnancies), and seven had other health concerns (7% of births).

The second study reviewed 36 pregnancies and found that there were eight miscarriages (22%). Of the 28 children who survived to birth, 23 were healthy (82% of births, 64% of pregnancies), and five had congenital malformations (18% of births, 14% of pregnancies).

According to this research, despite the high risk of birth defects associated with the drug, 53% to 64% of babies were born “healthy” after being exposed to varying amounts of isotretinoin.

According to researchers:

The level of fetal exposure to isotretinoin varies from pregnancy to pregnancy so it is possible that isotretinoin-related problems may be higher for women who continue taking isotretinoin for a longer duration before discovering that they are pregnant.

However, there is insufficient data to address this issue. There is little information about the timing of spontaneous abortions, either in weeks or trimesters. There is little follow-up data on infants with no gross malformation to determine the risk of developmental disabilities later in life.

Why It Matters:

A risk to preborn children exists, but in no way does a risk or even a guarantee of a birth defect mean a baby should be intentionally killed. How can it be ethical to, on the one hand, try to protect the life of a preborn child, while on the other hand, treat them as if their lives are disposable?

Instructing women not to become pregnant while on Accutane shows care and concern for a child’s health and life, yet abortion supporters would also intentionally have that child killed because of their exposure to Accutane.

A health condition, no matter how severe, does not warrant killing. Babies’ lives, even when affected by isotretinoin, are not expendable.

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In addition, leading women to believe their child will be born “defective” so they must have an abortion if they were on Accutane when they became pregnant is discriminatory towards not only the child, but also the mother, who may suffer a lifetime of regret over that abortion.

Although Brooks was focused on her career and never wanted to be a mother, learning she was pregnant changed her feelings.

“I will never forget when I saw that positive pregnancy test; I broke down. And it wasn’t out of fear,” she said. “I broke down because I realized I wanted to be a mom, and that option was no longer on the table in this moment. And it shocked the hell out of me. Because I had always been, ‘I don’t want to be a mother. I’m good. Career, career.”

She admitted, “It was really hard, very, very difficult to actually have an abortion. It was not what I wanted, but there was no way around it,” and added, “But I went through a lot of emotions with that, feeling guilty, feeling selfish a lot.”

It is possible that Brooks either misunderstood the agreement she signed or was misinformed by someone else that she would have to abort. Regardless, it is a tragic situation.

No woman deserves to be told her baby is better off dead. Women on Accutane deserve to know that there is hope for their babies and that they are not required to have an abortion.

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