by Jakki Jeffs
Alliance for Life Ontario has heard that Action Canada is in a state of panic over our Abortion Pill Reversal Campaign.
Action Canada says…
“Urgent :Help put an end to abortion reversal disinformation”
Alliance for Life Ontario says…
What disinformation can this possibly be? Well….
Action Canada says…
“Right now, we are ringing the alarm bells about a widespread “abortion pill reversal” campaign that is quickly picking up speed across Canada. Anti-choice actors and organizations are targeting people seeking abortion with disinformation about an experimental “abortion reversal pill” and wrongfully claiming that medication abortion can be reversed mid-procedure.”
Alliance for Life Ontario says…
Now let’s just calm down, think this through logically, add some facts, and get those alarm bells turned off, shall we? – Let me tell you what we know so that you can stop worrying needlessly about the use of progesterone to help in maintaining a pregnancy.
FIRST, there is no “experimental abortion reversal pill” available anywhere. There is, however, a medical procedure named Abortion Pill Reversal or Abortion Pill Rescue which uses a method involving oral capsules of natural progesterone, a vaginal pessary formulation or injection to counter the effects of Mifepristone (the first pill taken by woman undergoing medical abortion).
If you think about it induced abortion is actually very similar to inducing miscarriage and if progesterone can assist with prevention of miscarriage, why not abortion? Usually 20-25% of pregnancies are miscarried and some of the latest studies are showing the benefits of using progesterone to help save these tiny babies in this particular case. The following information will put your mind at rest, that using progesterone to assist in maintaining a pregnancy is not new and recent studies are acknowledging the traditional practice, efficacy and safety of its use. Here are some independent links so that you can see for yourself.
Progesterone could prevent 8,450 miscarriages a year, finds new research January 2020
Progesterone is a hormone that is naturally secreted by the ovaries and placenta in early pregnancy and is vital to the attainment and maintenance of healthy pregnancies.
Researchers are calling for progesterone to be offered as standard in the NHS for women with early pregnancy bleeding and a history of miscarriage, after their growing body of research has found it is both cost-effective and can increase women’s chances of having a baby.
Progesterone Helps Prevent Re-occurring Miscarriage
“The hormone decreases the risk of bleeding during pregnancy and is now available as an affordable fertility treatment nationwide.”
Widespread acceptance and clinical availability
“Before our trial was published only 12% of clinicians would consider using progesterone in women at risk of having a miscarriage, but now the majority of them either use progesterone or intend to use progesterone in high risk women seeking help to prevent miscarriage,” says Dr. Arri Coomarasamy, a professor of Gynecology at the University of Birmingham in England.
No risks found
There is tremendous interest in finding ways to prevent miscarriage, says Dr. Ramsey and there are ongoing studies in multiple countries that are looking at both the use of progesterone, as well as other potential avenues for helping women bring pregnancies to term. “I think women can consider the evidence we have now when deciding whether to try the treatment, but we still need to do more for it to be conclusive,” says Dr. Ramsey. Dr. Coomarasamy says, “it’s a promising new treatment option to consider if you have early pregnancy bleeding and a history of previous pregnancy loss.”
Progesterone Helps Prevent Reoccurring Miscarriage
“Progesterone is a hormone that is naturally secreted by the ovaries and placenta in early pregnancy and is vital to the attainment and maintenance of healthy pregnancies. Researchers are calling for progesterone to be offered as standard in the NHS for women with early pregnancy bleeding and a history of miscarriage, after their growing body of research has found it is both cost-effective and can increase women’s chances of having a baby.”
See slide 13 and 14 -Progesterone has been used to help prevent miscarriage since the 1950’s
SECOND, I know that you are also concerned that pro-lifers are “wrongfully claiming that medication abortion can be reversed mid-procedure.”
I hope the peer reviewed studies below help you to calm down. Again, it is not a wrongful claim – and currently over 3,000 babies’ lives have been saved by this process, including Canadian babies. (142 Canadian women have contacted the Abortion Pill Rescue medical team and 70 of them begun the reversal procedure). Let me explain a little. The first abortion pill blocks progesterone which is a vital hormone necessary to maintain a pregnancy and the abortion reversal procedure floods the mother’s body with progesterone to replace it and hopefully save the pregnancy. On the American continent this has been successful between 64%-68% of the time and medical professionals are working hard to improve on these percentages. The claim is accurate and there are peer reviewed studies which prove it below.
A Case Series Detailing the Successful Reversal of the Effects of Mifepristone Using Progesterone
Progesterone Use to Reverse the Effects of Mifepristone
In the United Kingdom, the statistic is about 50% currently and that is explained by one physician who shared that, abortion reversal is largely unknown and because women in the UK go to their abortionists first and then to a doctor to ask for help when they have changed their mind about continuing with an abortion, and do not get any help – they are very late in the window of opportunity 24-72 hrs to save the baby’s life, before they find the Abortion Reversal Medical team. Even so, in just one year in the UK between 50 and 70 women began the process and 17 babies were born in twelve months with others at different stages of pregnancy. Here in Canada 142 women have accessed the Abortion Pill Rescue medical team with 70 starting the reversal and 9 babies born so far with more on the way. This is such wonderful news for women who now have a second chance at choice.
There has been a study of all the literature on the effectiveness of Mifepristone in ending a pregnancy with embryonic/fetal demise verified by ultrasound. The result was a survival rate of almost 25% if nothing else is done after taking the first abortion pill and the abortion was undertaken at gestational ages up to 70 days. Therefore, the UK abortion pill reversal procedure has doubled that survival rate and the US and Canada very nearly tripled it!
Embryonic survival after Mifepristone: A systemic review of the literature
Results of 1855 studies found,
- 30 studies using mifepristone as a single agent were selected for review; 18 met criteria describing embryo survival
- Mifepristone was lethal over a wide range of doses and gestational ages; surviving embryos were present over a similar range
- Survival rates using total doses of 200-300 mg ranged from 10-23.3%.
Embryo Survival after Mifepristone: A Systematic Review of the Literature
LASTLY, The Mitchell Creinin Study is used over and over again to imply that the use of progesterone to prevent complete abortion is dangerous and caused the study to be stopped. However, the hemorrhaging that took place was due solely to the first abortion pill (mifepristone) which is known worldwide to cause such hemorrhaging in women who take it.
What are the possible side effects of using Mifeprex? Cramping and vaginal bleeding are expected effects of the treatment regimen. In some cases very heavy vaginal bleeding will need to be stopped by a surgical procedure, which can often be performed in a healthcare provider’s office. Other common side effects of the treatment regimen include nausea, weakness, fever/chills, vomiting, headache, diarrhea, and dizziness in the first day or two after taking the two medicines.
Questions and Answers on Mifeprex
Across all groups, 230 (11%) experienced cramping and 445 (21%) experienced bleeding before misoprostol use.
Timing of pain and bleeding after mifepristone-induced abortion
This [Mifeprex]medicine will cause you to bleed and have cramps for about 2 to 4 weeks. Call your doctor if you have little or no vaginal bleeding after receiving the medicine
“Mitchell Creinin, a known critic of abortion pill reversal, was one of the authors of this bulletin. In 2019, Creinin published results of a randomized controlled trial of mifepristone alone vs. mifepristone and then natural progesterone. The results of the 2019 study (which was eventually cut short) demonstrated the success of Abortion Pill Reversal. Among the patients who received progesterone, 80% were able to achieve an ongoing pregnancy. This is compared to only 40% of the women who received the placebo. In the progesterone group, four out of the five women had “gestational cardiac activity” (a fetal heartbeat) at follow-up”
Mitchell D. Creinin et al., “Mifepristone Antagonization With Progesterone to Prevent Medical Abortion: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” Obstetrics and Gynecology 135 (Jan. 2020), doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000003620.
Abortion Pill Reversal: A Record of Safety and Efficacy
Alliance for Life Ontario believes every woman considering medication abortion should know;
- “The overall incidence of adverse events was fourfold higher in the medical compared with surgical abortion cohort”
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1988803
- From August 2017-July 2020 Health Canada reported 40 adverse reaction reports representing 26 individual women – one woman died, two experienced
“life threatening” effects and 23 experienced “serious” side -effects - Two peer-reviewed analyses of data reported to FDA suggest that the agency may have missed up to 95% of serious chemical abortion adverse events.
- Separate peer-reviewed studies from California, Finland, and Sweden confirm chemical abortion is linked to higher rates of complications than surgical abortions.
- Groundbreaking research from CLI’s Dr. Jim Studnicki shows the rate of chemical abortion-related ER visits increased 507% from 2002-2015 (the most recent data available).
- Life Science January 13th 2022 Lozier Institute
I know this is a lot to take in and therefore I will leave my response to your other concerns until another day. I am sure that neither Action Canada nor Alliance for Life Ontario wish to see women forced into an abortion they do not want especially when there is such wonderful, safe and effective medical assistance at their disposal which offers them a second chance at choice!
Do you think you can possibly turn off at least a couple of alarms?
Sincerely,
Mrs. Jakki Jeffs
Executive Director , Alliance for Life Ontario
