Chemical abortions are more likely to cause serious emergency room visits than surgical abortions or giving birth, a new study has found.
The study from the Charlotte Lozier Institute found emergency department (ED) visits from 2004 to 2015 caused by the abortion pill were “significantly more likely to have a severe or critical acuity rating than a visit following surgical abortion, live birth, or an ED visit at any time by a woman who was never pregnant.”
The study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health Research in August,measured the acuity, or severity, of emergency department (ED) visits. American Medical Association procedures code acuity at five levels: nonurgent, urgent, moderate, severe, or critical.
An ED visit after the use of abortion drugs was twice as likely to have a severe or critical rating (affecting nearly seven out of 10 women), than one following live birth or unrelated to pregnancy, and 50 percent more likely to have a severe or critical acuity rating compared to a woman who had a surgical abortion, the study found.
“These findings demonstrate conclusively that most women are having severe complications in need of complex care when they present to an emergency room following abortion drug use,” Ingrid Skop, M.D., vice president of medical affairs at the institute and co-author of the study, told Health Care News.
Dangers of Abortion Drugs
“It is crucial that we combat the false narrative that abortion drugs are ‘safe and effective’ if we truly care for the health and wellbeing of women in crisis,” said Skop.
Mifepristone, the first of a two-part series of drugs used to induce a chemical abortion, was authorized in 2000 under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) protocol for inherently dangerous drugs.
“The abortion drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, cause complications frequently,” said Skop. “High-quality international studies document approximately 15 percent of women will experience hemorrhage when used at less than nine weeks’ gestation.”
Sometimes “infection can progress rapidly to a life-threatening sepsis,” a possibility for which the FDA maintains a black box warning to physicians, said Skop.
“Abortion drugs send approximately one in 25 women to the ER, according to the FDA’s own label,” said Skop. “Unfortunately, no data about abortion is mandatorily collected by the U.S. federal government, so the FDA has relied upon abortion industry studies, with many women lost to follow-up, undoubtedly undercounting complications, in order to promote a false narrative of safety.”
FDA Removes Safeguards
Skop says the FDA has consistently removed safeguards on the use of mifepristone and misoprostol, including the requirement for an in-person visit with a medical professional.
“This allows the drugs to be ordered by telemedicine or online, and delivered in the mail, without any pre-abortion testing or post-abortion evaluation,” said Skop. “Women are forced to self-manage their own abortions and seek emergency room care for complications when the abortionist is unavailable, possibly out of state or even out of the country.”
Skop said such actions will result in even more complications, because “failure to perform ultrasound cannot rule out a potentially deadly ectopic pregnancy or accurately determine gestational age.”
Furthermore, the failure to perform pre-abortion lab tests “will not screen for women more likely to have complications from the drugs or in future pregnancies, and failure to obtain in-person informed consent may lead to coerced or unwanted abortions,” said Skop.
Mail-Order Abortions
“The Biden-Harris administration’s 2023 FDA altered its regulations on abortion drugs to allow them to be mailed nationwide by nonphysicians using telehealth unless there is a superseding state law,” said Katie Glenn Daniel, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
“Most states require a licensed physician’s involvement, and many prohibit telehealth abortion by maintaining laws to ensure in-person screening, counseling, and/or dispensing,” said Daniel.
Daniel says there are predictable differences in the laws in red states compared to blue states, particularly “shield laws” that protect blue-state abortion providers who break laws in relatively pro-life states.
“Not surprisingly, it is pro-life states with gestational limits that also ensure that abortion drugs cannot be sold to minors without parental consent and that women are given in-person screening and access to follow-up care,” said Daniel. “Blue states like Massachusetts and California have enacted ‘shield laws’ that shield the abortion industry from legal liability if they break other states’ laws and even if the products they sell, or their lack of meaningful informed consent, leads to a woman getting hurt, or worse.”
Cheaper Pills
Obtaining abortion pills online can be cheap but dangerous, says Daniel.
“The cost of abortion drugs varies widely, especially if they are purchased online,” said Daniel. “Websites like Plan C list sellers [charging] from just a few dollars, or even free, up to several hundred dollars.
“Some of these cheaper options are coming from overseas manufacturers that the FDA does not inspect and has warned Americans from using,” said Daniel. “The pricier options may come with a video or phone visit, although that is becoming increasingly less common since it slows down providers from filling drug shipments as quickly as possible.”
Use Up by 53 Percent
Chemical abortion pills have become the dominant method for abortion, rising from 53 percent of all abortions in 2020 to 63 percent in 2023, according to a March 2024 policy analysis by Guttmacher. American women had 642,700 medication abortions in 2023.
Harry Painter (harry@harrypainter.com) writes from Oklahoma.
Internet info:
James Studnicki, Ingrid Skop, M.D., et al., “Comparative Acuity of Emergency Department Visits Following Pregnancy Outcomes Among Medicaid Eligible Women, 2004-2015,” International Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health Research, August 20, 2024: https://lozierinstitute.org/comparative-acuity-of-emergency-department-visits-following-pregnancy-outcomes-among-medicaid-eligible-women-2004-2015/