What Abortion Pill ‘Reversal’ Really Accomplishes

It’s more than an unproven medical treatment—it’s a view into the antiabortion movement’s larger project.

Sep 5, 2022

THE AMERICAN ANTIABORTION movement is on a full-court press to remake the nation in its image. In June, its decades-long campaign to install sympathetic Supreme Court justices paid off with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, which stripped away the constitutional right to abortion. Now, the movement is pushing for draconian personhood laws (legislation granting fetuses the same rights as people) in an effort to make abortion murder.

In some states, the push is already working. In Georgia, for example, a new law allows expecting parents to claim fetuses as dependents on their tax returns. These victories are the result of a shrewd, ambitious strategy. The rise of an experimental treatment known as abortion pill “reversal” is part of this plan. Although it might appear a peripheral concern—hardly anyone actually seeks out this treatment—it’s a distinctly revealing pet project. The story of the rise of abortion pill reversal contains the antiabortion movement’s blueprint within it.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/abortion-pill-reversal-essay/


USA – The latest social media misinformation: Abortion reversal pills

After Dobbs, platforms’ uneven moderation approaches let an unproven “treatment” to reverse a medication abortion spread.

By REBECCA KERN and RUTH READER
08/20/2022

Social media companies are grappling with a flood of misinformation on an unexpected topic since Roe v. Wade was overturned: Posts promoting “abortion reversal pills.”

The dangerous and unproven treatment is being touted as a way for a pregnant person to halt a medication abortion before it can take effect. And while claims about these pills have existed on social media for years, they’re now skyrocketing — and getting a lot more traction with users.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/20/abortion-misinformation-social-media-00052645


UK – Pregnant woman shocked after GP ‘gave her anti-abortion leaflet’

Woman was reportedly handed information from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children at London clinic

Shanti Das
Sat 30 Jul 2022

A pregnant woman who told her GP she was considering having an abortion says she was left “shocked and traumatised” after being given a leaflet for an anti-abortion group.

The woman, 38, says she was seeking treatment for a bladder problem on 19 July when a doctor at All Saints Medical Centre in Plumstead, south-east London, asked whether she was pregnant.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/30/pregnant-woman-shocked-gp-anti-abortion-leaflet-society-protection-unborn-children-spuc


How Latin American women are winning the battle for abortion rights

Argentina, Colombia and Mexico have recently legalised or decriminalised abortion. Could Chile be next?

Diana Cariboni
29 April 2022

It was inconceivable, just five years ago, that ultra-conservative Colombia would decriminalise abortion, or that Catholic, neoliberal Chile would be gearing up to vote on a new constitution that enshrines sexual and reproductive rights, including on-request abortion.

Yet in February, Colombia’s constitutional court removed abortion (up to 24 weeks) from the criminal code in response to a court case brought by Causa Justa – the spearhead of a wide-ranging social and legal campaign of more than 120 groups and thousands of activists.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/women-latin-america-winning-abortion-rights/


USA – Abortion Pills, Once a Workaround, Are Now a Target

In advance of a Supreme Court decision, states are proposing new restrictions and heavier criminal penalties on medication abortion.

By Kate Zernike
April 6, 2022

Last year, after Texas passed its strict abortion ban, surgical abortions in the state dropped by half. Many women found a workaround: pills. The week the law took effect, requests for medication abortion shot up to 138 a day from 11 a day at just one service that delivers the pills by mail.

Anti-abortion lawmakers in the state were already on it. That same week, they passed another law making it a felony to provide abortion pills through the mail and requiring doctors to comply with new testing and reporting procedures to prescribe them.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/us/abortion-pills.html


How an unproven abortion ‘reversal’ treatment has advanced in the US

By Samantha Putterman
April 4, 2022

When Texas enacted a ban on abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, an international women’s health advocacy nonprofit organization saw a 1,100% increase in orders for so-called abortion pills.

The two-drug combination enables women to terminate their pregnancies within the first 10 weeks. Though the spike in demand has since leveled off at Aid Access, purchases hovered around 175% higher than usual in the months after the Texas law took effect.

Continued: https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/apr/04/abortions-reversible-how-unproven-abortion-r/


GMC backs down after Christian doctor Dermot Kearney challenges restrictions on anti-abortion pills following complaint by MSI Reproductive Choices

The General Medical Council (GMC) has dramatically lifted restrictions on a Christian NHS consultant who had been banned from providing emergency support to women in crisis pregnancies, ahead of his planned challenge to the measures in the High Court this week.

By Philip Bradfield
Sunday, 6th March 2022

Campaign group Christian Concern reported that the GMC dismissed every allegation against Dr Dermot Kearney and concluded that there is no case to answer.

Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, Dr Kearney, an experienced Hospital consultant from Tyne and Wear, had been blocked from providing Abortion Pill Reversal treatment (APR) in 2021 by an Interim Orders Tribunal, following a GMC referral.

Continued: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/health/gmc-backs-down-after-challenge-over-anti-abortion-pills-3598882


Facebook Ireland to investigate ads on ‘abortion pill reversal’

Three such adverts appeared on the platform here reaching ‘up to’ three million people

Wed, Oct 6, 2021
Mark Hilliard

Facebook Ireland has said it will investigate claims of ads posted to promote controversial abortion pill “reversal” procedures.

The social media company’s ad library recently showed records of 92 such ads in the US which, according to its own analytics, were viewed by users up to 18.4 million times since January, 2020.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/facebook-ireland-to-investigate-ads-on-abortion-pill-reversal-1.4692164


Health Canada deflects complaints about ads for ‘abortion-pill reversal’

Medical groups have condemned the treatment as unproven and potentially unsafe, but Alliance for Life argues there is good evidence reversal works and is safe

Tom Blackwell, National Post
Jul 07, 2021 

Health Canada has essentially rejected two complaints about an anti-abortion group promoting a controversial process to “reverse” medical abortions, as the niche issue earns growing attention from both sides in the heated abortion debate.

The matter is one for provincial regulators to tackle, said federal officials this week after deciding to take no action on the advertising grievances.

Continued: https://nationalpost.com/health/health-canada-deflects-complaints-about-ads-for-abortion-pill-reversal


UK – Woman in her 40s felt ‘scared and pressured’ by Marie Stopes when quizzed about ‘abortion reversal’ treatment she received from pro-life medic

By STEPHEN ADAMS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
3 July 2021

A vulnerable woman has told the General Medical Council she felt 'scared and pressured' when the medical director of a major abortion provider quizzed her about 'abortion reversal' treatment she received from a pro-life doctor.

The woman, a mother in her 40s, sought help from NHS consultant Dr Dermot Kearney after she started a 'pills by post' abortion, but then changed her mind.

Continued: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9753587/Woman-40s-felt-scared-pressured-quizzed-abortion-reversal-treatment.html