A federal district court ruling has put a damper on New York Attorney General Letitia James’ effort to silence crisis pregnancy centers about an abortion pill reversal treatment, according to a statement released Thursday from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
The United States District Court in the Western District of New York issued an injunction against the attorney general, barring her from taking action against crisis pregnancy centers discussing progesterone, a drug intended to reverse the effect of the abortion pill, with its clients.
ADF is representing the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, Gianna’s House, and Options Care Center in a lawsuit against the attorney general. The complaint alleges that James’ office is “abusing her authority by censoring the pregnancy centers because they tell women about the potential of using progesterone for abortion pill reversal,” the press release states.
ADF added: “Progesterone is a safe and naturally occurring hormone that can often be successfully used to counteract the life-ending effects of abortion drugs when taken in time.”
ADF Senior Counsel Caleb Dalton explained that women in New York “have literally saved their babies from an in-progress chemical drug abortion because they had access to information through their local pregnancy centers about using safe and effective progesterone for abortion pill reversal” and accused James of trying to “deny women the opportunity to even hear about this life-saving option.”
The lawsuit is a response to a legal action taken by James’ office against 11 pro-life pregnancy centers in New York. The attorney general alleges that the organizations are giving “false and misleading” information about the treatment.
ADF notes that “Multiple studies support the information the centers wish to provide women” and that progesterone helps mothers sustain their pregnancies. “Medical professionals have used it for decades to prevent miscarriage and forestall preterm labor safely and effectively,” the press release states.
There is currently a debate over the efficacy and safety of using progesterone to reverse the effects of Mifepristone, a drug used to induce abortions. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists referred to the procedure as “unproven and unethical.”
A 2012 case series reported on six women who took Mifepristone and were then administered varying progesterone doses. Four continued their pregnancies. This is not scientific evidence that progesterone resulted in the continuation of those pregnancies.
This study was not supervised by an institutional review board (IRB) or an ethical review committee, required to protect human research subjects, raising serious questions regarding the ethics and scientific validity of the results.
Case series with no control groups are among the weakest forms of medical evidence.
Subsequent case series used to support use of medication abortion reversal have had similar limitations, including no ethics approval, no control group, under-reporting of data, and no reported safety outcomes.
A 2016 randomized trial found that administration of the progestin-only contraceptive depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA, also known as DepoProvera) at the time of mifepristone administration for medication abortion may slightly increase the risk of ongoing pregnancy compared with DMPA administration at a follow-up visit.vi However, ongoing pregnancy rates were very low among all participants. Although the study’s findings suggest that concurrent administration of DMPA may slightly decrease the effectiveness of Mifepristone for medication abortion, the results do not demonstrate that DMPA “reverses” medication abortion.
The organization further insists that “abortion is an essential part of comprehensive medical care, and a patient’s decision to end a pregnancy following appropriate consultation with their trusted medical professional should be treated with respect.
On the other side of the debate, the Charlotte Lozier Institute discussed other studies showing that the treatment is safe and effective.
In 2018, physician George Delgado (one of the two pioneers of the APR protocol) had a peer-reviewed study published in the medical journal, Issues in Law and Medicine.[16] The study followed 754 women who all wanted to stop their in-progress chemical abortions. Working with obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Mary Davenport and five other scholars, Delgado demonstrated that when administered within 72 hours of taking Mifepristone, the APR protocol has a 64-68% success rate in saving unborn babies.
Notably, the study also found zero increased risk of birth defects or preterm births. Indeed, as referenced in Practice Bulletin 225 from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), Mifepristone itself has not been shown to cause birth defects.
The organization pointed out that “Progesterone use in early pregnancy is low risk and its application to counter the effects of mifepristone in such circumstances may be clinically beneficial in preserving her threatened pregnancy.”
The case is still being adjudicated, but the injunction is a sign that the court could possibly rule against James’ office on First Amendment grounds. James is clearly trying to use the force of government to silence pro-life individuals and organizations who are trying to decrease the number of abortions and help mothers make better decisions for themselves and their families.
