How Abortion Pill “Reversal” Became a Powerful Right-Wing Legal Weapon

Blue-state attempts to crack down on the treatment could end up shielding “fake clinics” from any oversight.

Garnet Henderson, Susan Rinkunas, Mother Jones
Oct 15, 2025

Crisis pregnancy centers have played a central role in the anti-abortion movement since the 1960s, often misleading and confusing people seeking abortions while purporting to help them. They mimic the appearance of abortion clinics, with similar-sounding names and even lookalike logos. Their volunteers sometimes pose as clinic staff to divert abortion patients from getting care. Their websites are teeming with disinformation, including claims that abortion is unsafe or linked to future mental illness, breast cancer, and fertility issues. “A killer, who in this case is the girl who wants to kill her baby, has no right to information that will help her kill her baby,” Robert Pearson, founder of the very first CPC in the US, once declared.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/how-abortion-pill-reversal-became-a-powerful-right-wing-legal-weapon/

‘UK charity encouraged me to take controversial abortion reversal pill’

An undercover Times investigation reveals how US-inspired Christian activists are pushing dogma-driven medical, counselling and mental health services in the UK

Constance Kampfner
Tuesday September 23 2025

A little over a minute into my call with Rachel Mackenzie, one of Britain’s foremost anti-abortion activists, her voice tightens with urgency. “You had the pill last night — you can reverse it,” she tells me.

I have called her helpline to say that I am in early pregnancy and have taken one of two sets of prescribed abortion pills. I explain it is not the right time for me to become a mother, but that I am experiencing some doubts and am looking for advice.

Continued: https://archive.is/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/abortion-counselling-reversal-pill-investigation-f25hd20sd

Puerto Rico – Anti-abortion centers without health regulations deceive those seeking abortion

Three anti-abortion centers advertise themselves as offering medical services, sonograms and information about abortions and abortion pills, even though they are not regulated by the Department of Health. People who come to their facilities, lured by confusing language, share their personal information, not knowing that they will then receive false information and multiple follow-up calls urging them to continue with a pregnancy they do not want.

Sept 26, 2024
Photos by Brandon Cruz González | Center for Investigative Journalism
by Cindy Burgos | ALL and Center for Investigative Journalism

They look like ordinary medical offices — with scrubs -clad employees offering free sonograms and pregnancy tests — but they are not. They are called “crisis pregnancy centers,” and while they promote themselves as places that provide scientific medical information about options for an unwanted pregnancy, in practice, they are anti-abortion centers that use techniques of deception, manipulation, incomplete or false information, and from a religious perspective, to convince pregnant people to continue with a pregnancy they do not want.

There are three such pseudoclinics in Puerto Rico: two Hope Women's Clinics in Río Piedras and Bayamón; and Centro Raquel in Carolina. All are located near or next to one of the four clinics in Puerto Rico that offer abortion services, an essential health procedure that can only be performed by a licensed physician.

Continued: https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2024/09/centros-antiaborto-sin-regulacion-salud-puerto-rico/

Ministry warns against the use of progesterone for ‘abortion reversal’

11 July 2024

The Ministry of Health – Manatū Hauora has published a position statement on ‘abortion reversal’ to warn New Zealanders against this unsafe and scientifically unsupported practice.

The Ministry does not support or recognise the practice, which is aimed at reversing the effects of taking early medical abortion (EMA) medication. The Ministry is concerned about reports ‘abortion reversals’ may be offered in New Zealand.

Continued: https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/ministry-warns-against-use-progesterone-abortion-reversal

11.07.2024

News

abortion pill reversal

abortion reversal

early medical abortion

Manatū Hauora

Royal Australia New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Anti-abortion centers raked in $1.4bn in year Roe fell, including federal money

Exclusive: memo shows anti-abortion pregnancy centers received at least $344m in government money in 2022

Carter Sherman
Wed 14 Feb 2024

Anti-abortion facilities raked in at least $1.4bn in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, the year Roe v Wade fell – a staggering haul that includes at least $344m in government money, according to a memo analyzing the centers’ tax documents that was compiled by a pro-abortion rights group and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

These facilities, frequently known as anti-abortion pregnancy centers or crisis pregnancy centers, aim to convince people to keep their pregnancies. But in the aftermath of Roe’s demise, the anti-abortion movement has framed anti-abortion pregnancy centers as a key source of aid for desperate women who have lost the legal right to end their pregnancies and been left with little choice but to give birth.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/14/anti-abortion-centers-funding

Malta – We aid and abet abortion

People call the free Abortion Doula Service because they know they will receive abortion advice according to best practice

Christopher Barbara, Natalie Psaila and Isabel Stabile
Nov 20, 2023

We refer to ‘Inciting murder of the unborn” (October 6) in which senior colleagues call for the police to investigate us for providing information and support to those persons in Malta who seek an abortion. This is preposterous.

We have absolutely no qualms letting people know exactly how to order pills online, how to take them and what complications are possible as well as the precautions they need to take to avoid them. We do this because we are medical professionals and are obliged to provide every support possible to any person that needs our help.

Continued: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/we-aid-abet-abortion.1067760

Abortion pill mifepristone: An explainer and research roundup about its history, safety and future

Amid pending court cases and ballot initiatives, journalistic coverage of medication abortion has never been more crucial. This piece aims to help inform the narrative with scientific evidence.

by Naseem S. Miller
November 1, 2023

Access to mifepristone, a medication that’s used for the safe termination of early pregnancy, hangs in the balance while the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to take up a case that could determine the legal future of the abortion medication.

In August, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mifepristone should not be prescribed past the seventh week of pregnancy, prescribed via telemedicine, or shipped to patients through the mail. In September, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to consider a challenge to that ruling.

Continued: https://journalistsresource.org/health/mifepristone-research-roundup/

‘Disproven and unsupportable’: Kansas judge blocks junk science abortion restrictions

The ruling called the long-standing “Women’s Right to Know Act” an attempt to discourage abortion seekers

BY: RACHEL MIPRO
OCTOBER 30, 2023

TOPEKA — A Kansas judge on Monday blocked a combination of long-standing and newly implemented abortion restrictions in the state in what abortion providers described as a “hard-fought” win against “ethically unjustifiable” misinformation.

Johnson County District Judge Krishnan Christopher Jayaram ruled against several abortion requirements set out in the “Women’s Right to Know Act,” patchwork legislation enacted over the past two decades that uses medically inaccurate information to dictate abortion restrictions.

Continued: https://kansasreflector.com/2023/10/30/disproven-and-unsupportable-kansas-judge-blocks-junk-science-abortion-restrictions/

California Brings First-Time Lawsuit Against Anti-Abortion Movement’s ‘Abortion Pill Reversal’ Scheme

“Those who are struggling with the complex decision to get an abortion deserve support and trustworthy guidance—not lies and misinformation,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

10/9/2023
by JENIFER MCKENNA and CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit on Sept. 21 against a chain of California crisis pregnancy centers and its national parent organization for false advertising of “abortion pill reversal” (APR)—an unproven and possibly dangerous high-dose progesterone intervention the anti-abortion movement claims can “reverse” an underway medication abortion. This is the first lawsuit in the country challenging the CPC industry’s promotion of APR.

AG Bonta’s complaint charges RealOptions Obria, a five-site crisis pregnancy center chain in Northern California, and the Ohio-based Heartbeat International with violating California’s False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition law by falsely advertising “abortion pill reversal” as safe and effective. The lawsuit seeks an injunction to block further dissemination of the misleading claims, in addition to other remedies and penalties available under state law.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/09/abortion-pill-reversal/

09.10.2023

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abortion reversal

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

American Medical Association

anti-choice deception

anti-choice disinformation

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice misogyny

Betsy Butler

California Women’s Law Center

crisis pregnancy centers

Designed to Deceive

False Advertising law

George Delgado

Heartbeat International

Mary Davenport

Obria

pregnancy care centers

Privacy International

progesterone

RealOptions Obria

Rob Bonta

Society for Family Planning

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine

The Alliance of State Advocates

Unfair Competition law

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/