One of the most ludicrous things we’ve come across in a while is the abortion reversal pill. This is evidence of extremely biased people capitalizing on the misinformation surrounding pregnancy and abortion. Understanding what the abortion pill is and how it works will help with the process of trying to understand the claims of this pill reversal website.
The abortion pill is a two-step process where you take mifepristone at the clinic/hospital and misoprostol 6-48 hours later at home or at a place where you are comfortable. Mifepristone blocks the progesterone hormone a woman’s body naturally makes which is needed for pregnancy. The second pill, misoprostol, causes you to cramp and bleed since it is emptying the uterus. The abortion pill works as long as it has been 70 days or less since the first day or your last period. Planned Parenthood says that everyone is different however most people pass the pregnancy tissue in 4-5 hours after taking the first pill, mifepristone.
Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) is a company that claims they can reverse the abortion pill as long as you do not take the second pill the doctors give you (misoprostol). Their process of reversing the abortion pill is giving women doses of progesterone one of three ways; by injecting it into the butt muscle, by mouth or by vagina.
APR is supported by a 2,500 member group called The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and when looking at their website, nothing seems out of sorts on the surface. Success stories have their own section on the website and the doctors that support this reversal pill are plastered on the website. But when looking closer, you start to realize something. This company, Abortion Pill Reversal, is a pro-lifers agenda to shame women into not getting an abortion.
Once an abortion pill has dissolved into your body, the chances of getting it to not affect your body are close to none. The first pill the woman takes sheds the tissue the fetus needs to survive in the womb in the matter of hours. However when consulting the APR website, they say to call their hotline as soon as possible and even if it’s been 72 hours since the first pill has been taken. Their advice is, “even if 72 hours have passed, call our hotline (877) 558-0333. We are here to help. It may not be too late.” The second pill has to be taken within 6-48 hours since the first one, 72 hours later would definitely be too late for any ultrasound or reversal of an abortion pill.
Photo by Dave Fayram on Flickr
Starting from the website itself, abortionpillreversal.com, the success stories they have posted are all written on the same date (July 20, 2015) but not only are there success stories to give women the illusion that this reversal method might work, there are also regret stories that are posted on the same date as the success stories. These regret stories are taken from a website called “Silent No More Awareness” which is a website dedicated to women and men shedding light on the physical and emotional pain of getting an abortion and seeing a loved one go through an abortion.
The stigma is that women who get abortions are not in the right state of mind, are going to harm their bodies, and are careless continues to plague society. The site claims that “there is no situation that is so hopeless that ending human life is the only option” however there are plenty of reasons for a woman to abort. For example, the woman who is pregnant might not be able to carry the fetus to term without putting her own life in danger, the fetus could have birth defects if it is carried to term, and/or the woman could have gotten pregnant because of rape. Regardless of the situation, for the website to make a claim such as that puts doubt and judgment onto the woman who decided to get an abortion done.
It should be noted that APR is run by a group with a pro-life agenda. The tactic is to scare pregnant woman/girl under the guise of an unbiased consultation. Planned Parenthood, a credible organization quoted below, notes that there is no medical proof for the reversal pill.
The medical director of APR George Delgado, recently came out with a new study that involves patients that have called an informational hotline after taking the first abortion pill mifepristone from the years 2012 to 2016. It seems that all the reportings around the reversal pill are simple studies and observations instead of clinical trials as(also) reported by the Washington Post. This type of research allows Delgado and his team to have numbers from the trials to try to support their claims. But this type of research also underlines how experimental and theoretical the abortion reversal pill really is.
For most women, making a choice to abort a fetus isn’t an easy process. Women who go to clinics for the abortion pill have thought out and processed what would be happening. The abortion pill works from 70 days since last missed period.
The Abortion Reversal Pill is a site that not only gives women a false sense of hope that they can reverse any effects of the abortion pill but it also contributes to the stigma that having an abortion is wrong and is something that needs to be corrected.
By: Kerasa Tsokas