While America’s attention is on the legal battle over continued access to two pills used in medication abortions, a fresh battle is brewing over a controversial protocol alleged to reverse the effects of the abortion pills.
When New York Attorney General Leticia James filed suit May 6 against a dozen entities for making false or misleading claims, most Americans never had heard of the protocol at the heart of this lawsuit.
New York now joins California and Colorado in filing legal action against crisis pregnancy centers and others who claim to offer treatments that reverse medication abortions.
Despite all the attention on surgical abortion, medication abortion remains the most common way to end a pregnancy. This involves taking two drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol — days apart.
Anti-abortion activists have challenged in federal court the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and are seeking to get it banned as the next step in their all-out war on abortion access.
Meanwhile, James has highlighted the claims of some anti-abortion groups that they can counteract medication abortion and “restore” a pregnancy.
This is advertised as “Abortion Pill Reversal.” A woman who has taken mifepristone is advised not to take misoprostol as the intended follow up and instead is given high doses of the hormone progesterone.
One such organization in Saranac Lake, N.Y., advertises: “Is it possible to reverse a medication abortion? Yes, it is possible! If you have taken RU486 (mifepristone), call the Abortion Pill Reversal Hotline now. Every hour after your first dose of the abortion pill matters, so it’s important to contact us immediately. … We work quickly to get you the necessary medication, limited obstetric ultrasound and emotional support you need.”
This protocol has not been approved by federal regulators, and major medical associations have warned it is unproven, the lawsuit contends. “Abortions cannot be reversed. Any treatments that claim to do so are made without scientific evidence and could be unsafe,” James said.
Heartbeat International, one of the organizations being sued in New York and California, said such litigtation is “a clear attempt to censor speech.”
The National Catholic Register said in an article: “Several surveys have found evidence that the drug can be effective at halting a medicated abortion.”
In 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued five pregnancy centers and Heartbeat International, accusing them of fraudulent and misleading advertising. Also in 2023, Colorado enacted several new laws providing access to abortion, including a ban on abortion pill reversal.
Crisis pregnancy centers already are a major point of contention between those who favor abortion access and those who oppose it. Abortion opponents say the centers offer help and hope to women with unwanted pregnancies. Critics of the centers say they often pretend to be medical clinics when they are not and accuse them of offering misleading information intended to convince women not to have abortions.
Southern Baptists and other evangelical groups have invested heavily in crisis pregnancy centers, and the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission supports a project that places ultrasound equipment in such centers.
Mother Jones reports that in New York state, crisis pregnancy centers outnumber abortion clinics.
“They lure struggling pregnant people in with promises of financial and emotional support, and then actively discourage them from obtaining abortions — often, in part, through medical misinformation delivered mostly by volunteers, not medical professionals,” Mother Jones reports. “One of their favorite deceptive tactics is to hawk so-called ‘abortion pill reversal’ regimens, which they falsely claim can stop a medication abortion in its tracks, allowing someone to continue a pregnancy.”
While the New York suit names 11 centers operating in New York, it also names Heartbeat International, which claims to operate more than 3,000 crisis pregnancy centers.
Heartbeat International is represented by the conservative Christian law group Thomas More Society — a legal advocacy group that has been at the center of several high-profile Supreme Court cases on behalf of conservative viewpoints.
“On April 30, we preemptively sued Ms. James on behalf of our clients — Heartbeat International, CompassCare and a group of New York pro-life pregnancy help organizations — after they were blitzed with ‘Notice of Intention to Sue’ threat letters from Ms. James’ office,” the firm said in a news release attributed to Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation. “We will fight back, as long as it takes, against Ms. James’ efforts to jeopardize the Christian and life-affirming missions of Heartbeat International, CompassCare, and all similar pro-life ministries in New York.”
The news release said James should “follow the science” and “face the facts” that Abortion Pill Reversal is “a safe and effective option for pregnant mothers who have taken the first abortion pill, immediately regret it, and seek to save their unborn babies’ lives.”
Each side of the abortion debate now alleges the other supports unsafe medical protocols, and both viewpoints now are let loose in the courts.
On March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case involving the FDA and access to mifepristone. Through a process known as “court shopping,” those who filed suit to get mifepristone removed from FDA approval chose a federal court in West Texas with only one judge on the bench, a staunchly conservative judge who was known to be personally against abortion access.
His ruling limiting access to mifepristone was appealed, setting up the current Supreme Court case that remains undecided.