Abortion Pills Side Effects

Abortion Pills are Very Dangerous

A new startup called 'Choice' is putting abortion pills in the hands of women who are not actually pregnant. Their goal is to make the abortion pill more accessible, so that women can seek abortions at home as needed. If you think medicine is unethical or a disaster waiting to happen, you're right.

Recently, activists have repeatedly called for abortion pills to be made available by mail, especially in states that have decided to preserve life after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It is often claimed that these pills are 'safe'. So safe that a pregnant woman can chemically abort herself at home without a doctor's help. What is not said is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never felt the need to know what happens to women after using abortion pills.

The most important way to determine the level of risk of a drug is to keep track of any adverse reactions, hospitalizations, or deaths among people who have taken the drug. It is also necessary to know how many people have taken the medicine. Many believe that the FDA collects this information as part of ensuring drug safety in the United States. In most cases they do. But not when it comes to abortion pills.

Despite the importance of drug safety, the FDA does not want to account for any side effects other than death for the chemical abortion drug mifepristone (also known as RU-486). But since it came on the market in 2000, the drug has been on the short list of highly dangerous drugs that require enhanced regulations. The FDA only wants an account of the drug's side effects in cases of maternal death. But emergency surgery ignores life-threatening complications such as excessive bleeding, transfusions, ectopic pregnancy, or sepsis.

Yet we know that women suffer health complications from the abortion pill at an alarming rate. Publicly available data on hundreds of side effects, from heavy bleeding to emergency hysterectomy, is only a fraction of the picture. None of these complications are important to the FDA to account for. And who is responsible for calculating the death? It is hopeless to expect drug manufacturers themselves to properly account for the side effects of their multi-million dollar products. Worse, the drug manufacturers only found out about maternal deaths caused by mifepristone by those who assisted in the abortion process themselves. But there is no reason to inform the abolitionists of this information either.

Because women are sent home with these pills, or women buy the pills online, never see a doctor afterward. So the abolitionist most of the time doesn't know what happened next. As a result, the dangers of the abortion pill become more pressing. A pregnant woman may visit an emergency room if she experiences severe pain or excessive bleeding. But her medical records do not state that the abortion drug was the cause of her bleeding.

If women do not report their chemical abortions, serious symptoms such as ectopic pregnancy or fetal retention may remain hidden. This can result in the need for emergency hysterectomy, septic shock or worse. Let me remind you again, no account is kept of these tragic consequences until the death of the pregnant woman.

The FDA doesn't actually keep track of the number of chemical abortions either. Anyone can report if they want; But there is no obligation. The same is true of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose voluntary reporting system is known to underestimate the number of abortions by hundreds to tens of thousands each year.

Frankly, the 'best' source of information on abortion numbers is from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. Named after a former president of Planned Parenthood, the organization collects data from abortionists who voluntarily participate. According to Guttmacher's report, nearly 1 million babies were killed before birth in the United States through abortion in 2020. About 50,000 of these children were poisoned, starved to death through chemical abortions, and then removed from their mothers' bodies. Guttmacher doesn't want to know how many women have bled, had to be hospitalized, had to have their uterus removed or died as a result of these abortions. How can anyone claim the abortion pill is safe, knowing such a big problem? All dangers are being masked by an ineffective 'accountability' system. The pharmaceutical company behind Mifepristone is so secretive that it does not disclose who its executives are, where its offices or factories are, or who is investing in the company. It is difficult to expect transparency in the death statistics that such a company voluntarily presents. Women's health and safety are being ignored at every step.

So the abortion pill can be called safe? Of course not. But the abortion industry or the FDA have no interest in knowing the extent of their danger. Women shouldn't get any support for injecting a deadly chemical into their bodies, putting their health at risk.

Dennis Hurl is a senior advisor to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and director of the organization's Center for Life.