New mifepristone clinical trial has goal of ‘blurring the line’ between abortion and contraception

Dutch abortionist Rebecca Gomperts, founder of the international abortion pill business Aid Access, is testing mifepristone (the active ingredient in the first drug of the abortion pill regimen) for use as a contraceptive. The 12-month clinical trial, “Efficacy, Safety, and Acceptability of Mifepristone 50 mg Once-weekly as a Contraceptive (WOMEN),” is sponsored by Leiden University Medical Center. It expects to show that the “use of weekly mifepristone 50 mg as a contraceptive will be safe, effective, and acceptable.”

Despite the dosage differences between the drugs, some speculate this will guarantee that mifepristone will remain accessible for abortions.

Collaborators of the trial include Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and Women on Waves — another organization co-founded by Gomperts, who is acting as the principal investigator of the trial.

The study will utilize “Mifepristone 50 mg” — a lower dosage than the mifepristone/Mifeprex 200mg approved in the United States for use as the abortion pill. But could easy access to a 50mg pill allow it to be substituted for the 200mg dosage approved in 2000 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the termination of pregnancy?

Children’s Investment Fund Foundation

On its website, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) claims to be “an independent philanthropic organisation, with offices in Addis Ababa, Beijing, London, Nairobi and New Delhi,” which “work[s] with a wide range of partners to transform the lives of children and adolescents.”

CIFF was established in 2002 by Chris Hohn and his then-wife Jamie Cooper. The organization claims to have granted $416.6m to “Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights [SRHR]” — which always encompasses abortion.

In addition to taking part in the mifepristone 50mg contraceptive trial, CIFF is currently partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pfizer, and others on an injectable contraceptive. In addition, CIFF funds projects with the eugenics-founded Population Council, which brought the abortion pill (RU486) into the United States and set up its U.S. manufacturer, Danco Laboratories.

According to Influence Watch (emphasis added):

After President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, a policy first outlined in the Reagan administration that requires foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to assure they will not ‘perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning’ if they are to receive family planning aid from the United States, Hohn pledged $10 million towards the ‘She Decides’ movement, a pro-abortion-rights global fundraising initiative created by the Dutch Government.

Mifepristone contraceptive trial expands

“In May 2022, the Moldovan Department of Health gave approval for the clinical trial of mifepristone for contraception. More than 14 medical centers, including seven hospitals, have already committed to participate in the study. Researchers began enrolling patients in Moldova in August 2023 and hope to expand the study to the Netherlands soon, working with Leiden University Medical Centre. Researchers plan to include 949 women who will use mifepristone weekly for a year,” Ms. Magazine reported in August. “Approval of mifepristone for contraception would also make it available as a morning-after pill, for use within 120 hours after unprotected intercourse, and to end an early pregnancy.”

According to the clinical trial:

Participants in the study will use mifepristone 50 mg once-a-week for one year as a contraceptive. With this, we want to confirm that the chances of getting pregnant while using this contraceptive are very small.

We also want to demonstrate that the use of mifepristone is safe, and it does not lead to any severe health problems.

We expect fewer side effects compared to other frequently used contraceptives with hormones. Mifepristone does not contain these hormones.

It is important to know how people experience that use of one tablet a week.

Gomperts is picking up where the research of Kristina Gemzell Danielsson, president of the International Federation of Abortion and Contraception Professionals (FIAPAC), left off. Danielsson is a “professor, senior consultant and Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Director of the WHO collaboration centre for Research in Human Reproduction at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden,” according to the FIAPAC website.

“Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, researchers like Kristina Gemzell Danielsson… examined the compound’s efficacy as both emergency contraception and a birth control pill,” wrote The Verge. “Though there was some debate over whether mifepristone worked best as a weekly or monthly contraceptive, the general consensus was that it showed great promise as a non-hormonal birth control pill. The same mechanism that it uses to halt fetal development — blocking the release of progesterone — can also be used to prevent ovulation and thin the uterine lining, making pregnancy impossible.”

In February, Gomperts told Vice that “Mifepristone doesn’t function very differently from EllaOne, the most effective morning-after pill, which also doesn’t contain any estrogen or progesterone. You can take it up to five days after unprotected sex. We expect this to also be possible with mifepristone.”

The Verge wrote:

As a first step, Women on Web has convened a team of medical, scientific, and ethics experts from around the globe to conduct a year-long clinical trial involving nearly 1,000 women in the Netherlands and Moldova, using weekly mifepristone for a year. The study was designed in keeping with FDA and European Medical Agency protocols and has already recruited seven hospitals as participants and secured all the necessary clinical and ethical approvals to begin the study in Moldova.

Through it, Women on Web plans to pick up where Gemzell Danielsson’s research left off, determining the most effective dosage for contraceptive use, as well as any unforeseen complications and side effects that might arise from weekly use of low-dose mifepristone.

If the study conclusively determines a safe and effective dosing regimen for a prophylactic formulation of mifepristone, Women on Web will register the medication as a contraceptive with the European Medicines Agency. A number of organizations have already committed to distributing the medication as well.

The study could also open doors for the FDA to approve a low-dose mifepristone contraceptive pill alongside the 200mg abortion pill and 300mg Cushing’s medication.

“Blurring the Lines Between Abortion and Contraception”

Live Action News has previously documented how one of the strategies of Big Abortion is to get abortion-inducing drugs on pharmacy shelves under “other indications,” where they can be accessed and used to kill preborn children.

In fact, Gomperts admitted as much regarding the goal of the mifepristone 50mg trial.

In an interview with Democracy Now, Gomperts claimed that by making the abortion pill available as a once-a-week contraceptive or morning after pill, the industry would be “blurring the line between anticonception or contraception and what an abortion is.”

She later added that by making mifepristone available as a contraceptive, “it will be much less regulated and possibly over-the-counter in the future.” This has long been the goal of the abortion industry.

“It would allow us to move flexibly between the medicine’s different indications as weekly contraceptive, as an on-demand method used before or after sexual intercourse or as an early medical abortion method, depending on our life circumstances,” Gomperts told Ms. Magazine.

Asked by Vice when Gomperts believes that “people’s right to self-determination regarding contraception will be complete,” she replied, “when the pregnant person can decide for themselves when the fetus becomes worthy of protection…”

On GoFundMe, Gomperts described the venture as “A New Post-Roe Strategy” and raised the dollars needed for the mifepristone 50mg trial she admitted that if the drug were approved as a contraceptive it “would allow us to move flexibly between the medicine’s different indications as weekly contraceptive, as an on-demand method used before or after sexual intercourse or as an early medical abortion method, depending on our life circumstances.”

“Even if states ban the abortion pill, this new on demand contraceptive method can always be accessible through local or international (telemedical) services,” Gomperts added.

Urge Walmart, Costco, Kroger, and other major chains to resist pressure to dispense the abortion pill