As Big Abortion feels the threat of the U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding access to the abortion pill, proponents attempt to validate abortion even by unprecedented means of text and WhatsApp, delivered directly to doorsteps or through a commercial pharmacy.
A February 2024 study, “Effectiveness and safety of telehealth medication abortion in the USA,” sought to prove the safety of telemedicine abortion by video, mail, and texting.
Conducted by the University of California and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, both avid Big Abortion defenders, the conclusions of this study have a familiar ring – “safe and effective.”
Since reporting their outcomes, this same mantra has been echoed by mainstream media and has already been cited in an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court. Yet some are already stepping forward to call the outcomes bogus.
In an effort for Big Abortion to expand abortion access in all stages of pregnancy, this study seeks to counter the known increasing the health and abuse risks to women as chemical abortion rates and adverse events skyrocket.
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For more than 20 years, the FDA approval of mifepristone in a regimen combined with misoprostol, has had a limited dispensing due to safety concerns. However, in the last few years, the FDA has permitted the bypassing of safeguards specifically designed to protect the health of American women.
The abortion researchers concluded ordering prescription abortion medications remotely is as safe as in-person care. Yet chemical abortion has a laundry list of adverse events and its increased use has elevated ER visits in the U.S. by 400% for abortion-related conditions. Without proper medical assessment and informed consent prior to an abortion, women are at more risk than ever.
Abortion providers seek to provide the least amount of medical supervision and care as possible despite significant risks of hemorrhage and infection.
With frequent mentions of threats to abortion access and fears mifepristone restrictions, the researchers in this study sought to expand abortion to the least medically supervised process possible – even just a quick text message.
Some outcomes appear to be missing.
With some big questions about how participants were selected and omitted from this study, researchers concluded that telehealth text abortion is as safe as an abortion that takes place face-to-face with an abortion provider.
With an abundance of data reporting chemical abortion is unsafe even with medical oversight, doubts of this study were bound to surface.
Six-thousand-one-hundred and fifty-four patients met the eligibility criteria out of the more than 8,000 originally selected. It is unknown why 2,000 were not considered eligible to report their outcomes yet had abortion medications dispensed to them in 20 states and Washington, DC.
An obvious flaw in the study is that it’s unlikely women would turn to telehealth when faced with life-threatening symptoms. A study that depends on self-reporting might lack essential data that could sway the outcomes.
Enrollment in this study relied on a “no-test protocol” to determine eligibility and self-reporting to determine outcomes. It was assumed every woman who experienced an adverse event contacted the researchers with the details.
Researchers considered “serious adverse events” of blood transfusion, abdominal surgery (including salpingectomy, laparotomy, and laparoscopy to treat ectopic pregnancy), hospital admission requiring overnight stay, or death. 81 (2%) of their patients reported an emergency trip to the emergency department.
However, these types of emergency concerns would be urgently treated in an emergency department, not by a telehealth abortion provider. This created an obvious probable gap in their study.
As in other studies conducted by Planned Parenthood, researchers assumed that all the women who didn’t return to Planned Parenthood were completely free of problems. Also many abortion providers encourage patients with a possible adverse event to avoid disclosing their abortion when seeking emergency care.
Tweet This: In an effort to expand abortion access in all stages of pregnancy, this study seeks to counter known health risks of chemical abortion.
Did the study have any relevant conclusions? The study actually proves women can be ambivalent during the abortion decision process, choosing not to start the abortion (more than 100 women) and some change their minds even after taking the first pill.
Despite enrolling in this abortion study with the abortion pill supplied to them, more than 100 women chose not to consume the abortion medication and two asked to be treated with abortion pill reversal in order to continue their pregnancies after taking mifepsritone. These groups give further evidence that all women are not absolute in their abortion decisions at the time they first make the abortion decision and even after taking the first pill.
Chemical abortion already empowers abusers of women. The study promotes more abuse as anyone can send a text to order the drugs.
With 30% of domestic abuse starting or increasing during pregnancy, expanding access to abortion pills only increases the influence of others who would seek to influence a pregnancy choice. As less face-to-face abortion occurs, it is impossible to know if the woman is alone or who is speaking on her behalf.
Rather than advocate for women in these tragic circumstances, Big Abortion works through research to justify sending out abortion pills after a brief phone call or text message.
Does the FDA advocate for the sales of online abortion?
The short answer is no – the FDA, at least in theory, disagrees with the conclusions of this study. The FDA has sent warning letters to websites selling unapproved and misbranded mifepristone and misoprostol over the internet, including AidAccess and Rablon.
There have also been several criminal cases related to the online sale of mifepristone: United States v. O’Neil, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. March 28, 2017: Former Atlantic County, New Jersey, Man Charged with Smuggling and Dispensing Misbranded Drugs | FDA and New York Woman Sentenced for Selling Abortion-Inducing Pills Illegally Smuggled Into US | USAO-WDWI | Department of Justice.
The FDA also issued a Final Debarment Order for Ursula Wing, debarring her for a period of five years from importing or offering for import any drug into the United States. This debarment was based on her felony conviction related to her importation and distribution of unapproved and misbranded mifepristone and misoprostol over the internet.
How many women and children are possibly affected by unsafe chemical abortion?
Due to limited reporting of abortion providers in the U.S. as well as an abundance of unreported text and online orders, the exact numbers of abortions throughout the world remains unclear.
Support After Abortion reports that chemical abortion accounts for more than 80% of all abortions in the U.S. Most estimate more than one million children in the U.S. will be lost to abortion this year and more than 73 million worldwide.
Even if conclusions of this study were not underestimated, it implies that conservatively 16,000 women in the U.S. and 1.1 million women will need emergency medical care after starting their chemical abortions this year.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News.