Chemical abortion pills (Image courtesy of Wikicommons Images, VAlaSiurua CC BY-SA 4.0)After new research found that the chemical abortion drug, Mifeprex, is 22 times more dangerous than the FDA recognizes, the national prolife group, Americans United for Life i(AUL), has launched a national petition campaign to demand that the Trump administration take action to protect women’s lives.
According to the new analysis, “The Abortion Pill Harms Women,” by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), an analysis of data collected from 865,727 women, found that more than one in ten women experience a serious or even life-threatening adverse event within 45 days of taking the abortion drug, mifepristone. This rate of adverse events is 22 times higher than the rate recognized by the FDA.
Originally, the FDA approved the drug after following data from 30,966 women across 10 clinical trials, some of which were conducted 42 years ago. But the new EPPC data, taken from nearly one million women, produced a far more accurate picture of the adverse effects real women face compared to the original, outdated trial data used for the agency approval.
Now that mifepristone is used for more than 6 in 10 abortions in the United States, the risk this drug poses to women is higher than ever before and existing policies must be reevaluated in light of the new data.
To answer this call, the AUL has released a new policy guide for lawmakers providing a comprehensive overview of the nation’s state abortion laws and policy recommendations to protect women from the serious danger of mifepristone.
In addition, they also launched a petition drive calling upon pro-life Americans to demand that the FDA and Trump Administration take action that will put the lives and health of women first.
As they detail in the petition, when the FDA first approved the drug in 2000, it imposed several “black box” warnings and restrictions on the use of the pills. These restrictions, known as REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy) limited the drug to women who were seven weeks pregnant. It required three in-person office visits where the drugs were dispensed and administered, and a follow-up to ensure that the abortion was complete and there were no complications. Only licensed doctors were permitted to prescribe the drugs and were mandated to report all adverse events to the FDA.
“Even with these safeguards, chemical abortion drugs subjected women to numerous health risks, including severe bleeding, hemorrhage, incomplete abortion, life-threatening infections, and even death,” the AUL states.
“However, the FDA recklessly removed protections designed to reduce these risks. Now, chemical abortion pills can be mailed to women in direct violation of federal law, prescribed even by non-doctors, and given to women who are up to 10 weeks pregnant, well past the initial approval timeframe. The FDA also closed its ears to the adverse consequences of the drugs, telling abortionists that they are not required to report non-fatal events.”
Women who take these drugs are now subjected to increased health and safety risks, as evidenced by the ever-growing number of women who end up needing emergency medical care after taking the drugs.
“…[D]epending on the age of the pregnancy, approximately 1 in 25 women who take chemical abortion drugs will end up in the emergency room,” AUL reports.
“Today, chemical abortion drugs are causing unsuspecting women to deliver their own babies into the toilet or bathtub, which is a traumatic experience. The FDA should reinstate safeguards to mitigate the drugs’ risks to the physical and psychological health and safety of pregnant women and girls.”
According to John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life (AUL), “It’s clear based upon this analysis that chemical abortive drugs harm women, aren’t highly effective, and the American public has been deceived into believing these drugs are as safe as Tylenol. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we are going to be working with regulators on ensuring that women are protected from these harmful drugs.”
Your voice matters! Demand that the FDA take accountability for its reckless actions by, at a minimum, reinstating all REMs requirements on the chemic abortion drug mifepristone. Click here to sign the petition!
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