Google recently began censoring Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) ads amidst pressure from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The UK-based organization called for the ban, labeling the APR protocol a “dangerous and unproven procedure,” despite more than 2500 lives that have been saved by the treatment.
The ads being suppressed promote a medical protocol that can reverse a chemical abortion. They share the stories of moms with successful reversals.
One medical doctor with decades of experience practicing in women’s health pointed out that suppressing information about APR comes from a bias in favor of abortion.
“These pro-abortion organizations, including unfortunately almost all of the mainstream medical organizations, want to make the discussion go away,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, a board-certified OB/GYN, “because they don’t want people to know that people change their mind (about abortion).”
“So, they’re ideologically inclined to try to make [APR] look dangerous,” Skop said.
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A chemical abortion is a two-drug regimen currently allowed in the U.S. up to 70 days into a pregnancy. The first medication is mifepristone, which blocks the action of progesterone, the natural hormone in a woman’s body necessary to nurture and sustain a pregnancy.
The chemical abortion process then calls for a second medication, misoprostol, to be taken 25-72 hours after the mifepristone is taken. This second medication causes the uterus to contract and expel the baby.
For a pregnant woman who takes mifepristone and then decides she does not want to complete the abortion, APR offers her another option to honor her decision to change her mind.
Within 24-72 hours after taking mifepristone, but before taking misoprostol, the medical provider administering APR prescribes bioidentical progesterone to counter the mifepristone to reverse the effects of mifepristone.
While the CCDH and Google aim to censor ads about APR, the CCDH is not campaigning against ads promoting the abortion pill process, and Google continues to run ads for chemical abortion, as evidenced HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Skop, who has been advising women for decades about safe medical practices, spoke with Pregnancy Help News about Google’s ban and the railing against the APR medical protocol.
Skop has worked in the same San Antonio medical practice for over 25 years and serves as medical director for four pregnancy care centers. She is also a provider in the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN).
She recently testified in front of the House Oversight Committee regarding the need for greater data collection on morbidity and mortality from abortion procedures.
By training and experience Skop is a medical expert on pregnancy.
Skop first addressed the safety of progesterone.
“If you consider the name, progesterone, that’s a pro-gestational hormone that is high in pregnancy,” Skop stated. “It is standard medical care to give progesterone during pregnancy for a number of indications.”
“If women have assisted reproduction, they almost without fail get progesterone the entire first trimester,” Skop said. “If they have had prior miscarriages or losses, if they have bleeding early in pregnancy, many doctors will supplement progesterone.”
“Progesterone supplementation in and of itself poses no harm to a pregnancy and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine has documented that on their website,” she said.
“Progesterone is extremely safe in pregnancy,” Skop emphasized.
Christa Brown, director of Medical Impact for Heartbeat International, affirmed the safety and life-saving capabilities of APR.
“Abortion Pill Reversal is safe and effective for both moms and babies,” she said, “a simple protocol to counteract the effects of the first abortion medication.”
“It’s been effective to save the lives of more than 2,500 children and counting,” Brown added. “These children are alive and well today because their mothers found the APR Hotline and started the reversal protocol.”
And yet, ads informing of APR protocol – built on the use of this “extremely safe” medication – are treated as ban-worthy by Google and others.
Skop pointed to underlying reasons for the censoring of APR ads.
Regarding the “question about APR,” Skop asserted that “pro-abortion organizations want to downplay it, want to villainize it.”
Tweet This: Pro-abortion organizations are ideologically inclined to try to make Abortion Pill Reversal look dangerous
“I’ve been a member of ACOG [The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists] since I was board certified 25 years ago,” she continued. “In that time period, the leadership of ACOG, they’ve proven themselves over and over and over again to be, not just pro-choice, but pro-abortion.”
“The AMA [American Medical Association] and ACOG, when they come out and say it’s unethical to provide Abortion Pill Reversal, that’s their leadership’s ideologic idea, it’s not a reality of ‘Is it really medically unethical?’”
There’s a disconnect between the leadership of the medical organizations and the members on the ground, Skop said, “They’re not asking the members of their views.”
“It’s not surprising that it’s happening with Google,” Skop added. “Big Tech, big corporations, and big government are sort of this unholy alliance to promote a progressive secular agenda.”
“It’s sad, but it’s not surprising,’ she added. “They are trying to create algorithms so that women cannot access the [abortion pill reversal] hotline.”
Brown, too, wrote of the ban:
“It’s biased and discriminatory that women who first chose abortion are treated differently and denied options. In this time when reproductive rights and bodily autonomy are highly valued, Big Abortion and Big Tech have decided that women cannot make decisions about their own bodies or their children and that they must be forced to complete abortions they no longer desire.”
Skop addressed the purported lack of safety of APR, noting the weakness of the oft-cited Creinin study.
The lead researcher, Mitchell Creinin, is both an abortion advocate and a paid consultant to U.S. abortion pill manufacturer, Danco.
Skop pointed to the ideological inclination surrounding the study, stating, “clearly the study was designed to find complications.”
While this limited study is cited as proof that hemorrhaging “may” occur after APR, Skop noted that all women in the study had originally taken mifepristone and “the reality is the mifepristone is what puts them at risk for hemorrhage.”
Danco corroborates Skop’s claims on the Mifeprex (mifepristone) page of its website, stating “cramping and bleeding are an expected part of ending a pregnancy.”
Additionally, the page notes that “rarely, serious and potentially life-threatening bleeding, infections or other problems can occur following” a medical abortion.
“Mifeprex is a pill that blocks progesterone,” Danco states on its website. “Without progesterone the pregnancy cannot continue and the lining of the uterus softens, breaks down and bleeding begins.”
Skop, who also serves as a medical advisor for Feminists for Life, is clear that she supports Abortion Pill Reversal first for the sake of the woman, focusing on the “harm to women from abortion,” especially “women who rush into it and then have to live with that decision the rest of their lives.”
Feminists for Life President Serrin M. Foster provided a statement to PHN:
"Women have a right to know about the abortion reversal pill. We can handle it, and don't need to be babied by abortion advocates, who would prefer women don't change their minds about such a big decision."
Brown concurred.
“Women deserve to know the whole truth about all choices available to them,” she said. “How bizarre is it that women are deemed competent to understand their options before an abortion but once the chemical abortion is started, they are denied information about options.”
“Every month, dozens of women start APR and we’ve never had one say she regretted saving the life of her child,” Brown said. “On the contrary, we consistently receive words of thanks for the help and support our team provides as they assist these brave women who stand up against the pressures and influencers in their lives in order to make a different decision.”
“We are not here to pressure anyone or decide for them but rather empower women to make informed choices,” she added.
Addressing the parties involved in silencing APR ads, Skop said that if they were pro-choice then they would certainly support the woman’s choice not to have an abortion, or if she did start the process and wanted to reverse it, they would support her choice to reverse it.
Skop is resolute in this.
“So clearly they’re not pro-choice,” she said. “They’re pro-abortion.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News.
