Despite government efforts to ban life-affirming Abortion Pill Reversal in Colorado, medical professionals are fighting to provide the protocol and mothers are being given a second chance to choose life for the children.
In April of 2023 Colorado passed a law prohibiting medical professions from providing Abortion Pill Reversal treatment to offer women that second chance at life for their babies.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed to intervene in a case challenging the law and the legal non-profit succeeded in getting an injunction allowing the medical practitioner they represented to continue offering APR.
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Pregnancy Help News spoke with Chelsea Mynyk the nurse practitioner represented by ADF and Mackenna, a patient she treated with APR, along with ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot.
Mackenna learned she was pregnant in late December 2023 and in January 2024 she took the first abortion pill from the “abortion kit” she received in the mail.
“Immediately upon taking that drug I regretted that decision,” Mackenna said.
“I was panicking, I was pretty desperate, and I Googled ‘can I reverse a chemical abortion?’” she recalled. “And sure enough, Abortion Pill Reversal popped up and I got connected with them.”
Representatives from the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network, a network of more than 1,400 healthcare professionals, pregnancy centers and hospitals that administer APR, connected Mackenna with Mynyk’s practice. To date, the Abortion Pill Rescue Network’s statistics say that more than 5,000 lives and counting have been saved through APR.
“Later that evening Chelsea got me started on the progesterone and the Abortion Pill Reversal protocol process,” Mackenna said.
From there Mackenna went in and saw Mynyk the next morning.
“She wanted to make sure things were okay, so I saw her in office,” Mackenna recounted.
“From there we established a great patient-provider relationship,” she said. “And just last month I delivered a very healthy baby girl.”
ADF argues that the Colorado law specifically targets women who have changed their minds about their abortion and in effect forces them to undergo abortions they no longer want.
This has motivated Mackenna to get involved and speak out against Colorado’s devastating law which could have deprived her of the choice to continue her pregnancy.
“I didn’t initially know about the ban,” she told Pregnancy Help News. “It wasn’t until a little bit later on that I became aware of how unfair Colorado was being with this law.”
Over the past year Mynyk has helped four patients who have experienced the same regret Mackenna had after taking the chemical abortion pill, treating them with APR.
“Thankfully, with Alliance Defending Freedom coming alongside me and helping me get this injunction in place I am allowed to continue helping women in these situations,” Mynyk said. “Our hope is that we can establish a protocol to where we don’t have that fear of having this as an option for women because many women do regret their abortion and want to have that option to reverse it.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed the suit against the state of Colorado on behalf of Bella Health and Wellness in April 2023. Becket was granted a preliminary injunction in October 2023.
“Of course, that’s just a preliminary hold on the statute and so when Chelsea joined, we asked the court on her behalf to extend it to Chelsea and so the court did,” Theriot said.
This action prevents Colorado from limiting the speech of providers like Mynyk or the ability to provide the lifesaving APR treatment while the case is litigated. Colorado is one of several abortion states that are attempting to suppress Abortion Pill Reversal.
“This is an unconstitutional statute that violates both Chelsea and Mackenna’s rights,” Theriot pointed out.
The discovery process is underway which will allow ADF to establish additional evidence of the state of Colorado’s targeting of pregnancy centers and medical professionals like Mynyk, as well as individuals like Mackenna.
Theriot remarked on the impetus for the law, stating, “We’re not towing their pro-abortion line.”
Along with not going along with the pro-abortion agenda, the abortion lobby pushes back against any suggestion that women and moms like Mackenna might regret their abortion, he said.
“I love the fact that Kevin’s team and Chelsea are fighting for women’s rights,” Mackenna said. “They are fighting for women just like me.”
Mackenna noted the importance of protecting health care providers like Mynyk.
“Providers like Chelsea, they go into that profession to help people, to save lives,” she said. “And that’s exactly what she’s doing, so prohibiting her from doing that goes against everything they trained her to do.”
Mynyk had her own words of appreciation,
“It’s a blessing to have women like Mackenna, who is willing to speak about her experience and what she’s going through,” she said. “That takes a lot of courage on her part.”
She is also thankful for ADF and its efforts to ensure that Colorado can’t silence medical professionals and prevent them from saving lives.
“Because we have two lives in these situations,” Mynyk said, “the mom and the baby, and we’re just going to keep pushing forward and hoping to be able to continue to practice our profession of being life advocates.”
Mackenna remarked on the disparity between the ease of procuring chemical abortion drugs and Reversal treatment.
“It was far easier for me to obtain that abortion pill than it is for most women to now obtain the lifesaving healthcare of Abortion Pill Reversal,” she said, recalling how she was issued the abortion pills without providing any proof she was pregnant or how far along she was in her pregnancy.
“I think that is just so backwards,” she said.
Tweet This: It was far easier for me to obtain that abortion pill than it is for most women to get the lifesaving healthcare of Abortion Pill Reversal.
“It is a tragedy when women are able to access the abortion drug without having any type of interaction with a healthcare provider,” Mynyk said. “Some women are taking the abortion drug, and they may not even be pregnant. Now they are going to live with that guilt thinking that they ended the life of their babies.”
Mackenna is grateful for her daughter and for the second chance at giving her life through APR.
“There are so many women out there like me that don’t know that this care exists,” she said. “I love that they value a woman’s right to choose to change their mind.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. Heartbeat is currrently the subject of two lawsuits brought by state AGs concerning sharing information about Abortion Pill Reversal,
