It turns out 'reproductive health care' applies only to ending pregnancy
(The Washington Times) As the Supreme Court takes up the case regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s abortion pill approval, one group of voices is drowned out by all the noise: the women who have suffered from chemical abortions.
In the painful, risky aftermath of a far too easily obtained abortion, many turn to pregnancy centers for help. The nurses who help save their lives or treat their emotional wounds remember their stories, stories that should be heard.
At issue in the case is the FDA’s removal of basic safety protocols designed to protect women from dangerous complications arising from the abortion pill regimen. Although the FDA acknowledges the abortion pill regimen carries the risk of “serious adverse drug experiences,” beginning in 2016, it removed safeguards for women before, during and after their abortions, abandoning them at every point in their abortion.
Precautions such as sonograms, in-person physician consultations and follow-up are appreciated by women, especially those whose lives are saved by them. Preventive testing such as a physical exam, an ultrasound and blood tests can safeguard against medical catastrophes.
But don’t take my word for it. An amicus brief filed before the Supreme Court tells the heart-wrenching accounts of the Human Coalition clients placed in harm’s way.
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One woman was unknowingly ectopic when she took abortion pills because her abortion provider did not give her an ultrasound. She consulted a pregnancy center, which encouraged her to seek medical care. After emergency surgery to remove her fallopian tube, she thanked the nurses at the pregnancy center who “saved her life.”
Women give accounts of abortion providers failing to return their calls or refusing to schedule appointments when complications arise. One woman who received abortion pills online estimated she was 10 weeks pregnant. The abortion provider inaccurately assured her the pills would be effective through 12 weeks.
The woman endured a painful and difficult abortion. She bled heavily for three weeks, finally calling Planned Parenthood for help. The staff refused to see her. When she found medical treatment, the doctors discovered a retained placenta, a potentially life-threatening condition.
Yet another woman, a flight attendant, made it to the emergency room after her abortion provider dismissed her symptoms of a post-abortive infection as merely a stomach bug. Her abortion provider failed to warn her about the pain, bleeding and complications she could experience. After her emergency surgery, her doctors told her if she had waited 24 hours more, she would have died from the sepsis that developed.
If the abortion pills fail, then the pregnancy continues with the risk of the child becoming maimed or developmentally thwarted. And the mother and her growing child are deprived of critical prenatal care because she doesn’t know she’s still pregnant.
One Human Coalition client took abortion pills but sought follow-up care, feeling that something was still wrong. After two months, she discovered through an ultrasound that she remained pregnant with twin boys. Another client took abortion pills but continued to receive positive pregnancy tests afterward. After Planned Parenthood refused her requests for follow-up appointments, Human Coalition clinic staffers found a provider to see her that day; she learned she was still pregnant.
It’s a happy miracle these babies survived abortion attempts, but negligent abortion providers denied them and their mothers’ necessary prenatal care. It turns out “reproductive health care” applies only to ending a pregnancy.
Tweet This: It turns out that for abortion proponents “reproductive health care” applies only to ending a pregnancy.
Human Coalition nurses see firsthand how women become the living victims of these failures. Abortion providers are reported to minimize concerns and focus on the positive — the abortion pill regimen is an “easy process,” involves a “quick recovery,” and is “like taking an Advil.”
Many women who undergo chemical abortions are also grief-stricken and traumatized to discover, upon expelling a small human body, that their 8-week-old child had fingers and toes — a far cry from the “pregnancy tissue” that was described. The reality of early fetal development itself is obscured from them as part of their medical preparation.
Traumatized women call the Human Coalition, lamenting that they were uninformed of the pain, bleeding, and emotional trauma they experienced. They also call their nurses panicking in the middle of their abortions. The nurses support them over the phone, so they are not alone.
In addition to the millions of children extinguished by chemical abortions, the FDA sacrificed women in pursuit of politics by ignoring available data and approving mifepristone. And when it later removed basic safeguards to protect women from the known dangers of the drug, the FDA discarded women as easily as the children they carry.
Tweet This: The FDA sacrificed women in pursuit of politics by ignoring available data and approving mifepristone.
As the Supreme Court weighs these women’s voices, we should, too. Unfettered access to abortion pills spells disaster for women and children alike. But the mass death of children is lucrative. That’s exploitation, not liberation.
Editor's note: Chelsey Youman is national director of public policy for Human Coalition, a pro-life organization that operates a network of telecare and brick-and-mortar clinics for women across the nation. This article was published by The Washington Times and is reprinted with permission.
