‘End Abortion’ Is Not a Problem
A typical medical abortion involves two doses of pills. The first, mifepristone, blocks a hormone that the embryo or fetus needs to grow and develop. The second, misoprostol, causes the contents of the uterus to be expelled. But there is a growing political movement to force people who take their first drug to go through a “cancellation of abortion” procedure.
Last year, the director of the Refugee Resettlement Office detained a teenager in their care from taking a second dose of the regimen , ostensibly to check the “health” of the fetus and consider canceling the abortion.
Rewire says the abortion idea began with a study of six women who took their first medication and then said they had changed their mind about getting an abortion. Two doctors gave the women injections of progesterone, and four of them were pregnant.
The technique has not been studied more rigorously, so it is still experimental. And the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that there is no evidence to suggest that the “reverse” procedure does anything . There is a reason the regimen requires two drugs: if you are taking one and not the other, you have a 30 to 50 percent chance that your pregnancy will not be terminated.
It would have been just a boring medical debate were it not for what happened after the study was published: As Rewire reports, states have begun passing laws requiring doctors to tell their patients who have abortions that abortions can be canceled, although not. no evidence that this statement is true. One bill, proposed in North Carolina, prohibited patients from taking a second drug unless the first completely terminates the pregnancy.
Now anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” are claiming to offer abortion cancellation services. A representative of the network of these centers explains why:
While her center has yet to offer an abortion cancellation protocol, she says that when they do, the plan will be to stand outside the nearest abortion clinic and talk to women about how to end abortions. The ultimate goal, Griffin told Rewire in a telephone interview, is to get abortion prevention kits to emergency departments.
Abortion regret is rare; a 2015 study found that over 99 percent of people who had an abortion were happy with the decision at all points in the study, even three years later. On the rare occasion that someone changes their minds halfway through, ACOG says: “The available research seems to indicate that in the rare situation where a woman takes mifepristone and then changes her mind, do nothing and wait to see what happens is just as effective. as an intervention with a course of progesterone. “
How Lies Become Law: Reversing Abortion as a Case Study | Reprogram