BOSTON (LifeSiteNews) – The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) is warning health providers in the Bay State against promoting or prescribing a safe, proven method of reversing the effects of abortion pills before they kill a developing child.
Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) is a method of counteracting the abortion pill mifepristone (better known as RU-486) that functions by administering extra progesterone, the natural hormone mifepristone blocks, ideally within 24 hours of taking the abortion pill. Abortion defenders have targeted it in multiple states and demanded that speech touting it be suppressed on social media.
As highlighted by Live Action earlier this week, on January 3 the Massachusetts DPH sent a memo to all “ licensed physicians, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics” in the state to warn that their medical licenses could be at risk if they did not “provid[e] patients accurate and complete information for informed decision-making, accurate portrayal and advertising of clinical services, and licensees practicing within their scope of practice and their license.”
One example of “violation of good and accepted health care practice” identified by the memo is APR. “Strong evidence,” it says, indicates that APR is “unproven, unethical, and unsafe to provide to patients.” The document does not elaborate on this evidence, but instead cites the position of the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) that APR is “not supported by science.” ACOG has a long history of pro-abortion bias and advocacy.
In response to such accusations, pro-life OB/GYN Dr. William Lile has explained that APR is based on principles that are well understood from progesterone’s common, FDA-approved use in a variety of other pregnancy-related situations. According to the Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN), “initial studies of APR have shown it has a 64-68% success rate.” Heartbeat International also publishes firsthand testimonials from women who have benefited from the technique.
Last summer, the academic journal Scientific Reports published a study by Franciscan University of Steubenville neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Sammut that found “progesterone, administered shortly after mifepristone, reversed the effects of mifepristone (i.e., reversed the abortion) with living fetuses present at the end of gestation in 81 percent of cases,” after months of being challenged and rejected by other publications.
“All major studies show that using progesterone to counteract a chemical abortion (Abortion Pill Reversal) can be effective since it’s the very same hormone a woman’s body produces to sustain her pregnancy,” says Heartbeat International. “One study even shows an effective rate of 80 percent. Progesterone has been safely used with pregnant women and their babies since the 1950s. To date, statistics show more than 4,500 women have had successful abortion pill reversals and that number grows higher each day.”