Just How Dangerous is the Abortion Pill? Attorney Susan Swift and Brannon Howse Discuss

The abortion industry touts the abortion pill as simple and safe ‘health care,’ but something that directly and intentionally kills a living human being can never truly be classified as health care. The abortion pill is deadly for the preborn child, but also dangerous for the child’s mother.
Here are five things every woman should know about the risks of the abortion pill.Show more

1. RESEARCH SHOWS THE ABORTION PILL IS FOUR TIMES MORE DANGEROUS THAN FIRST-TRIMESTER SURGICAL ABORTION.

A 2015 study, “Incidence of Emergency Room Department Visits and Complications After Abortion,” examined the abortion complication rate of women in California who underwent abortions from 2009-2010, which were paid for through Medicaid.

Researchers found that the complication rate for women who took the abortion pill was 5.2%, compared to 1.3% for women who underwent first-trimester surgical abortions. When looking specifically at abortions that caused “major complications,” researchers discovered that more severe complications occurred for women who took the abortion pill (a rate of .31%) than women who underwent first-trimester surgical abortions (a rate of .16%).

Complications from the abortion pill include hemorrhaging, incomplete abortion, and infection that can cause death. Read the study here.

2. RESEARCH SHOWS APPROXIMATELY 6% OF WOMEN WHO TAKE THE ABORTION PILL NEED EMERGENCY CARE FOR COMPLICATIONS.

The results of a Gynuity-sponsored study published in 2021 in the journal Contraception revealed that six percent (6%) of 1,157 women who took the abortion pill visited the emergency room or an urgent care center for abortion pill-related complications. Ten of those were serious effects, with five women requiring blood transfusions.

This data mirrors that of abortion complications in the United Kingdom (UK). As previously reported by Live Action News, Kevin Duffy, a former Global Director of Clinics Development at MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International), stated that nearly 6% of women (as many as 1 in 17 pregnant women) who took the abortion pill in the UK between June 1, 2019, and May 31, 2021, were later treated for complications, and required treatment for incomplete abortions. He noted that this complication rate is consistent with data from Marie Stopes Australia’s 2020 report that found an overall complication rate of 6.37% for chemical abortions in 2020.

In addition, Duffy and his team found that three percent (3%) of women required surgery to remove the preborn child’s remains, and more than two percent (2%) required treatment for hemorrhaging.

While six percent may not look like much on paper, based on the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute’s 2017 statistics on chemical abortions, an estimated 20,380 U.S. women per year may be visiting emergency rooms and urgent care facilities after taking the abortion pill.

3. THE ‘NO-TEST’ ABORTION PILL PROTOCOL PUTS WOMEN’S FUTURE PREGNANCIES AT GREATER RISK.
The FDA recently decided to loosen the safety protocols for the abortion pill, allowing women to obtain the pill without prior testing or a physical exam, and even to obtain the pills by mail. But this lack of testing and oversight may put women’s lives at risk, as well as the lives of their future children. Fifteen percent of the U.S. population is Rh negative. If a woman is Rh negative and her baby’s father is Rh positive, her future children’s lives will be at risk if her Rh negative status goes undetected and untreated during pregnancy. When an abortion is carried out without knowing if a woman has Rh positive blood, any child she decides to have in the future could die as a result.

Kristi Stone Hamrick, who is Rh negative, explained, “The first child from that combination is usually fine, but then antibodies build up when blood comes in contact, such as during birth, accident, or abortion. These antibodies can cause later pregnancies to end in tragedy, when the mother’s own antibodies attack the blood cells of children in her womb, often causing death.”

The solution is for the mother to receive injections of Rh immunoglobulin, which prevent the mother’s body from making those antibodies. These injections must be administered during pregnancy and immediately after delivery (or an abortion or miscarriage), or the mother will carry the antibodies for the rest of her life, thereby risking the lives of her future children.

But the abortion industry’s “no-test” abortion pill protocol does not administer Rh testing to abortion clients.

4. ER VISITS FOR ABORTION PILL-RELATED COMPLICATIONS HAVE SKYROCKETED.
A study from the Charlotte Lozier Institute revealed that the rate of abortion-related emergency room visits following the use of the abortion pill increased by an astounding 507% between 2002 and 2015. The study examined data from women residing in 17 states providing Medicaid funding for abortion. The women were over 13 years of age at the time of their abortions, and visited the emergency room within 30 days.

The study also found that women who took the abortion pill had a 22% greater risk of an emergency room visit for any reason, as well as a 53% increased risk of an emergency room visit for an abortion-related reason. Women who took the abortion pill and then had a second abortion (chemical or surgical) within the next year were twice as likely to require treatment in an emergency room.

5. THE FDA DOES NOT REQUIRE COMPLICATIONS FROM THE ABORTION PILL TO BE REPORTED.
Despite all of this available information, as of 2016, the FDA no longer requires the manufacturer of the abortion pill to report complications of the abortion pill unless they result in death. This means that the true number of abortion complications will be hidden from women, leaving them blind to the risks they take when they swallow the abortion pill.

While Danco is no longer required to report non-fatal complications, they or others (such as women or medical practitioners) may choose to do so voluntarily. A recent analysis of complications submitted to the FDA by the manufacturer showed that women who experience complications from the abortion pill are more likely to visit an emergency room than the abortion facility where they obtained the pills. These women are also encouraged to lie to emergency room doctors, and tell them they are miscarrying rather than having an abortion. This highlights the fact that abortion pill complications are severely underreported.

Abortion advocates will lie and claim that the abortion pill is as safe as Tylenol, but these studies and reports reveal the truth. The abortion pill is dangerous for women, without question.

Credit: LiveAction