BAD ACTORS: Abortion industry encourages women and doctors to conceal abortion pill complications

Editor’s Note: This article is the sixth installment in a series. Previous articles can be read here: Bad Actors #1, Bad Actors #2, Bad Actors #3, Bad Actors #4, Bad Actors #5, Bad Actors #7.

One thing is certain: the profitable abortion industry knows how to protect itself… and it is doing so under the guise of protecting women.

In this “Bad Actors” series, Live Action News has shown evidence of repeated ways the abortion industry gets away with ignoring FDA protocols for the abortion pill regimen, potentially placing women in harm’s way. Just as concerning is the fact that, in order to cover for their negligence and unapproved methods, these “bad actors” are now advising women to lie to medical/ER staff — and also encouraging emergency room staff to falsify reports — about abortion pill complications.

Advising women to lie and attribute abortion pill complications to natural miscarriage

In a video report recently published by Vice News, New Mexico abortionist Franz Theard can be heard advising an abortion pill client to lie if she has a complication. “If you have to go to the hospital for any reason, you don’t have to admit that you had the abortion pill; you can say ‘I’m having a miscarriage,’” Theard is heard stating.

This does nothing to help the woman and everything to protect the abortionist or prescriber, who is required under the FDA’s REMS safety system to have the ability to intervene if the woman experiences an abortion pill-related complication, or the ability to refer her to someone who can.

In like manner, Florida abortionist Ralph Bundy, M.D., recently explained in the Daily Kos that “there’s no medical reason to tell a doctor about an abortion.”

And these abortion providers are not alone.

Renee Bracey Sherman, former NARAL board member and founder of the abortion site We Testify, told Twitter followers, “Illegal doesn’t have to mean unsafe. With medication abortion, it’s quite safe to self-manage an abortion….”

Then, in order to muddy what little data there is on abortion pill complications and deaths, in the exact same thread Sherman advised abortion patients to lie to hospital staff and claim they are experiencing a natural miscarriage rather than a chemical abortion when presenting to the emergency room.

“Remember, if someone decides to go to the ER because they’re concerned about how their self-managed abortion is progressing, they can just say they’re having a miscarriage. There’s no way to test for the medications in your system and the treatment for miscarriage is an abortion,” she tweeted.

The pro-abortion PlanC group openly tells women to lie when they face complications from their abortion methods: “People who self-manage their abortions should know that if they seek help at an urgent care clinic, they do not need to report that they have used abortion pills that they purchased online.” The group previously claimed, “there is no way it can be detected in the body, even if a blood test is taken.”

A ReproAction flyer clearly advises women to lie, stating that “[a]bortion with pills taken orally presents like a miscarriage. There is no need to disclose use of pills to medical staff…”

A webinar published by ReproAction in 2018 also states, “[T]he symptoms of an abortion with pills and miscarriage are exactly the same and the treatment for any kind of complication is exactly the same…. It’s important for people to understand there’s no test for these pills in blood or urine so if they present with a miscarriage they can get the healthcare that they need….”

Understanding Self Managed Abortion

Dr. Daniel Grossman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco, who teaches abortion and is a principal investigator in abortion pill clinical trials, allegedly told a reporter at The Atlantic that if women using these [self-managed abortion] regimens experience heavy bleeding or some other complication, they are generally advised to go to a hospital and say they had a miscarriage.

Grossman is behind clinical trials to expand the abortion pill for pharmacy dispension and is calling to remove important REMS safety requirements put in place by the FDA, even advocating for over-the-counter dispensing of the drug.

In addition, abortion groups are now calling for the FDA to approve the abortion pill (mifepristone) for miscarriage care — a move that is essentially an attempt to get the drug approved under “other indications” to circumvent laws that restrict abortion.

Suggesting ER staff falsify documents about abortion pill complications

While it is one thing to suggest that abortion clients lie, it is wholly unethical to suggest that medical personnel at emergency departments and ERs should falsify documents to cover up abortion pill complications.

But that is precisely what the previously mentioned Dr. Daniel Grossman did.

Grossman is a former NARAL board member and an abortionist with potential conflicts of interest. He is a senior adviser at Ibis Reproductive Health, which — as recently as 2020 — was directly funded by the abortion pill’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories.

Grossman’s stunning suggestion was published by Salon in an article by noted pro-abortion writer Amanda Marcotte, titled, “When SCOTUS guts Roe: The covert plan to provide abortion pills on demand – and avoid prosecution.” Read it here.

This unethical cover-up likely diminishes any chance that accurate numbers on abortion pill complications/deaths will be reported to authorities. However, it makes pregnancy seem riskier than it really is when abortion pill effects are attributed to natural miscarriage. This dishonest reporting works to protect the abortion industry and prescribers of the abortion pill, not abortion clients.

Dr. James Studnicki, VP of data analytics for the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), was the lead author of a peer-reviewed study to “determine if the failure to identify a prior induced abortion during an ER visit is a risk factor for higher rates of subsequent hospitalization.” Studnicki called the suggestion that abortion clients should lie a “cover-up” by the abortion industry.

“We are witnessing a cover-up by the abortion industry, aided by willing allies in the media and in politics.  Real-world data shows that miscoding abortion pill complications as miscarriage increases the risk for multiple hospitalizations and follow-up surgery.  By encouraging women to conceal important information from their doctors, and recommending that pro-abortion doctors misreport these complications, both women’s health and our understanding of the risks of the abortion pill are put in jeopardy,” Studnicki said.

The study’s 2022 analysis with a sample size of 423,000 debunks the narrative that “there’s no medical reason to tell a doctor about an abortion.” Authors including Studnicki concluded that “Patient concealment and/or physician failure to identify a prior abortion during an ER visit is a significant risk factor for a subsequent hospital admission. Patients and ER personnel should be made aware of this risk.”

“Good science depends on reliable data. Good medicine depends on an accurate medical history. Abortion advocates are working to undermine both and it is the women they claim to support who pay the price,” Studnicki added.

Did you know that as little as $10 a month is enough to reach more than 3,000 people with the truth about abortion that no one else is telling them? Click here to start saving lives 365 days a year.