Jerrold Nadler Is Wrong about Chemical Abortion

The congressman wants Facebook to limit ads for safe and effective abortion-pill reversal.

O n February 11, Democratic representative Jerrold Nadler wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking for answers about Facebook’s policy allowing advertisements for abortion-pill reversal (APR). In the letter, Nadler states he is “concerned” that Facebook permits APR ads while not allowing ads for chemical abortion, claiming that APR is “medical misinformation.”

There are more than 3,000 mothers who know for certain that APR is not a “flawed theory,” as Nadler describes it, but a proven medical procedure based on science. They know this because they have experienced a successful reversal of an unwanted chemical abortion, and their living children are a testament to its success.

The APR protocol entails prescribing a regimen of progesterone, which counteracts the effects of mifepristone, the first of two drugs taken in a chemical abortion. Far from being a risky procedure, it’s simply progesterone, which helps the mother’s body to do what it should be doing naturally and what it was doing before she took the first abortion drug, that is, to sustain her pregnancy.

To date, statistics show that at least 3,000 lives have been saved through the use of APR. In his letter, Nadler ignores the facts and science behind APR and instead advocates promoting abortion. Unsurprisingly, the sources he cites have connections to the abortion industry or are supporters of legal abortion.

Why would a sitting member of Congress attempt to quash awareness of an updated application of a treatment that has been used for decades to prevent miscarriage, making it more difficult for women to choose to try and save their child?

APR suppressed, chemical abortion gets a pass

Last year, while the FDA approved controversial mail delivery of chemical-abortion pills, Google banned all advertising of APR — placed by pro-life groups Live Action and Heartbeat International — on the same biased grounds that Nadler cited in his letter. Heartbeat International, the world’s largest network of pregnancy-help organizations, which also manages the Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN), submitted an appeal to Google but was unsuccessful.

Facebook said at the time that it would conduct a review of ads on its platform. That Facebook hasn’t yet completely banned APR, as Google has, doesn’t sit well with Nadler. Why is that?

Google and Facebook took these actions following a report from a U.K.-based website working to deplatform entities it deems “hate groups.” The report appeared in tabloid media, parroting anti-APR talking points common to the abortion industry and relying on the same disputed study that Nadler cites in his letter.

Amid the push to repress APR on big-tech platforms, chemical-abortion drug sales are still permitted online, including via Facebook, despite the numerous safety risks of these drugs. While joining in the effort to hide ads about APR, Nadler advocates advertising a risky abortion procedure that can harm women. Chemical abortion has led to:

• Four times the risk of complications as compared with surgical abortion in recent studies
• Thousands of adverse events, including 768 hospitalizations and 24 deaths since 2000, according to data released in 2018 by the FDA
• Severe side effects, including heavy bleeding, intense pain, and death
• An increase in emergency-room-visit rates for women taking abortion pills of 507 percent (8.5 to 51.7 per 1,000) between 2002 and 2015 

Chemical abortion uses two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, to cause a woman’s body to eject her unborn child. It is often promoted as less invasive and more natural than surgical abortion, but it is not without both physical and emotional risks.

Mifepristone is a progesterone receptor antagonist, and because progesterone is an essential hormone for a healthy pregnancy, blocking it causes the lining of the uterus to thin and prevents the unborn child from staying implanted and growing. Misoprostol, which is taken 24 to 48 hours later to complete the abortion, causes the uterus to contract and expel the baby. Misoprostol has not been approved by the FDA for use in abortions.

Chemical abortion is now the front line for abortion. Pregnant mothers are administering abortions to themselves in their bedrooms, bathrooms, and dorm rooms. Women are often alone when they deliver their deceased child, which could certainly make for a traumatic experience. They are likewise without medical oversight should complications occur.

Chemical abortion is surging in the U.S. and elsewhere, accounting for at least half of all abortions conducted in the U.S. each year, and possibly more). Abortion apologists are invested in protecting this lucrative and simpler mode of abortion delivery, so they work to quash APR.

Acknowledging the safety and success of APR means admitting that some women regret their abortion. As an antidote to unwanted chemical abortions, APR is bad for business.

A faulty study, biased sources

Nadler claims there is “ample publicly available evidence demonstrating that abortion pill reversal treatment was unproven and unsafe,” yet he does not provide any such data. Instead, he leans on Dr. Mitchell Creinin’s deficient APR study and on Dr. Daniel Grossman, whose work focuses on expanding access to contraception and abortion. The dangers that Nadler claims come along with APR are inconsistent with actual clinical experience of the APRN providers, who have treated many patients seeking reversal care.

The Creinin study is flawed and too small for statistical significance, and even so it contained evidence of the effectiveness and safety of APR, as its reversal success rates were consistent with other APR studies. The study was stopped as a result of safety concerns demonstrating the known dangers of mifepristone, a drug Creinin helped to develop. Creinin is not only an abortionist but also a consultant for Danco, mifepristone’s manufacturer.

Nadler’s other anti-APR source is the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which claims that APR is not based on good science. Yet the way mifepristone works to end a pregnancy is well understood medically, as is the basic principle of reversible competitive binding of drugs to receptor sites. Denying these principles is putting politics before science.

At the APRN hotline, we regularly hear from moms who have reversed their chemical abortions, and they express profound gratitude for their children and for their engagement with the APRN, which consists of more than 1,000 medical professionals. Studies conducted in 1989 and 2012, along with two in 2017, support the science of reversal using progesterone. A 2018 study showed successful reversal rates of 64 percent and 68 percent, respectively, with no apparent risk of birth defects.

What happened to “choice”?

At least 3,000 women thus far began to undergo a chemical abortion, regretted their decision, and made a different choice with the help of APR. Nadler has dismissed these mothers and their children, along with the intelligence and tenacity of women who deserve the chance to reject abortion at any point in the process.

Just because a woman chose abortion does not mean that information about reversal should be hidden from her. Suppressing a safe and reliable choice in this scenario is a cowardly attempt to manipulate women into completing abortions.

The abortion industry and its allies like to perpetuate the myth that chemical abortion is a one-way street, but that simply isn’t true. Maybe Nadler thinks women should have choices only when they choose abortion. His deference to abortion apologetic sources demonstrates prejudice toward abortion and against APR and the lives it has and continues to save. This latest suppression of APR is merely an attempt to bolster the abortion industry and manipulate women, and our federal lawmakers should have no part in it.