“This is Chemical Abortion” is a five-part docu-series of short videos produced by Charlotte Pence Bond and made in conjunction with Students for Life of America and Heartbeat International. It discusses what chemical abortions are, how they work, and what their associated risks are. It also details the safety regulations that have historically been in place to help protect women from those risks, and the current efforts to remove those regulations.
“Currently, political leaders are pressuring the FDA to make it easier to sell abortion pills via mail, politicizing ‘medicine’ to favor the interests of Big Abortion. If successful, this will increase the number of abortions in the United States by millions,” explains Heartbeat International’s webpage devoted to the docu-series. The page further explains that the series was made in an effort to combat these political efforts.
The series begins by naming the drugs that are used in chemical abortions — mifepristone and misoprostol — and explains the method by which they work to end the life of a preborn child and expel it from its mother’s body. A video explaining this process can also be seen below, from Live Action’s Abortion Procedures website:
It goes on to address the REMS for the abortion pill, and the efforts to do away with these safety regulations. It explains that the abortion pill’s REMS (an acronym for Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies) protect abortion-seeking women in several key ways. Firstly, they require an in-person doctor’s visit; this is necessary to achieve the other REMS requirements — documentation of gestational age, the ruling-out of ectopic pregnancy, and provision of informed consent.
Pinpointing gestational age is important because the abortion pill is only meant to be used for early abortions (up to 10 weeks) — as the gestational age of the child increases, so does the risk of incomplete abortion and complications, including maternal death. It is arguably of even greater importance to rule out ectopic pregnancy, as a ruptured ectopic pregnancy has roughly the same symptoms a woman is told to expect when she takes the abortion pill. Informed consent, likewise, is crucial — as the series mentions, a woman is sent home to complete her abortion alone, and if she is not informed about danger signs and when to seek help, she may experience adverse consequences, up to and including death.
READ: Live Action’s ‘Abortion Pill Kills’ campaign exposes the deadly truth about the abortion pill
It is worthy of note — and the series points this out — that the abortion pill’s rate of complications is four times higher than that of surgical abortion. It is due to its unusually high risk of adverse events that the abortion pill is among only 61 of the 20,000+ prescription drugs on the market which has REMS protocols.
But, as the series details, the COVID-19 pandemic has been used as an excuse to temporarily suspend the REMS protocols and make the abortion pill available via telemedicine and by mail, and there is a strong push for this suspension to be made permanent. However, as “This is Chemical Abortion” points out, suspension of these protocols opens the door for predators and sex traffickers to easily obtain the abortion pill and use it on their victims without consent. This was done to Remee Lee, whose boyfriend tricked her into taking the abortion pill, killing her wanted baby. If the abortion industry is really the advocate for women it purports itself to be, why is it fighting rules that help to protect women from abuses like this?
The answer, as the docu-series is quick to note, is that the abortion industry is not an advocate for anything… except abortion. It is an industry, and any regulations on the plying of its product — including common-sense guidelines like REMS which protect the consumers of said product — are seen as an impediment to their one and only raison d’etre: selling abortions. The industry doesn’t want women to know the potential risks associated with abortion, or to be informed about the development of the “products of conception” living and growing within them, or to see the humanity of their preborn children writ large on an ultrasound screen. And they absolutely don’t want women to have time to consider any of this information prior to going through with their abortions, because all of these regulations threaten to reduce the size of their astronomical profits.
Another thing the abortion industry doesn’t want women to know about is abortion pill reversal (APR), which is discussed in detail in the docu-series. This process works by introducing extra progesterone into the woman’s system to override the effects of mifepristone, as well as what a woman can expect when she contacts the Abortion Pill Reversal Network. It also debunks the abortion industry’s claims that APR is “untested,” “not backed by science,” and “dangerous” or even “life threatening” by explaining that progesterone has been safely used since the 1950’s. The millions of women using hormonal birth control (provided by the same people claiming APR is dangerous) or hormone replacement therapy are receiving the exact same drug.
The series ends by answering the question: what should I do if I am facing an unexpected pregnancy? Unless you wish to be sold a lemon, don’t go to the “used car salesman” of women’s health, advises Dr. Brent Boles, an ob-gyn who participates in the APR Network and who contributed to the docu-series. Instead, he suggests, go to one of the nation’s approximately 3,000 pro-life pregnancy centers, which are true advocates for women, and which will provide the free support mothers need during pregnancy and beyond.
This docu-series provides a comprehensive snapshot of the whats and hows of the abortion pill, as well as the current controversies surrounding it. It explains the options available to women who regret their decisions to take the abortion pill, as well as those available to help women who refuse abortion. “This is Chemical Abortion” is a valuable addition to the pro-life educational toolbox, and could be a powerful influence on public policy, as well — if those in a position to shape policy would simply watch it. The entire series can be viewed here.
Editor’s Note: Live Action’s video series and campaign on the abortion pill, “Abortion Pill Kills,” released in 2020, may be found here.
“Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!
