Abortion Pill Reversal: The Science of Hope

Like millions of women before her, Ashley's hopes and dreams were shattered. The boyfriend who promised her the moon and pressured her into sexual intimacy, now was back-peddling big-time, and wearing her down with hopelessness trying to talk her into an abortion.

Afraid to go to her parents, and without support from the child's father, she felt more force than choice. She reluctantly kept her appointment at the abortion clinic. They confirmed that the pregnancy was seven weeks, but they wouldn't let her see it. They sold her an abortion pill and watched while she swallowed it.

The regret set in even before she even left the clinic. Desperate, she asked the abortionist what she could do if she changed her mind. More hopelessness. She was told that the baby was sure to die even if she didn't take the second pill, and if it didn't it would be horribly deformed.

Heartbroken and despairing, she decided to turn to her family. She told her mother the whole story. Instead of rejection, she received love and support, for the first time. Together they called a pregnancy resource center who, in turn, called Dr. Matthew Harrison of Charlotte, NC.

She walked into the doctor’s office a full 36 hours after taking the Abortion Pill. It was late 2006. The FDA had fast-tracked it 6 years earlier, but no one had ever tried to reverse it. After the initial consultation, Dr. Harrison excused himself to think and pray.

All his training and experience told him that problems in the first trimester were untreatable. However, he realized, those were all natural problems. This wasn't nature. So, he began to think it through.

"Abortion Pill" is actually a misnomer. It is not just one pill, not even just one drug. It is a combination of two different drugs administered about 24 hours apart. The first is RU-486, an antiprogestin. The second drug is misoprostol, a labor inducer. The first causes nutrients to be cut off from the baby. The second is given to expel it from the womb. Since this second pill had not yet been taken, the entire concern was to reverse the effects of the first.

RU-486 (also known as mifepristone) works by tricking the body's natural progesterone receptors into receiving the RU-486 instead. This effectively blocks the real progesterone from having its natural effect of creating a nutrient-rich environment for the baby. Without enough progesterone, the uterine blood vessels constrict and eventually sloughs off the lining, taking the placenta and the baby with it.

But the blocking action on each progesterone receptor is only temporary. Soon it detaches from the receptor and seeks another. In between times, there is still a chance for the body's real progesterone to get in and do its work. Dr. Harrison had an idea. What if we could flood the body with extra progesterone and overwhelm the antiprogestin, beating it at its own game?

He had no guarantee that it would work. For Ashley, there were risks of bleeding. Nobody had ever tested progesterone and RU-486 together. But after carefully considering the risks and the uncertainties, Ashley jumped at the opportunity to save her baby. Even if the baby died, she could at least know that she tried.

On that good Friday, Ashley was given a 200mg injection of progesterone. Over the weekend, she began bleeding and made a panicked trip to the ER. There, instead of treating her for a miscarriage, they found a baby's heartbeat, and she saw her on an ultrasound.

She continued receiving progesterone shots as her optimism grew for the next nine weeks. At her 17-week ultrasound, there were no signs of the horrific deformities that the abortionist had warned her about. Then, after an otherwise normal pregnancy she gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl.

That was almost ten years ago. Since then, Dr. Harrison met Dr. George Delgado from Escondido, CA, who had been presented with a nearly identical situation. Independently, he made this very same discovery. Together they have built a network of hundreds of physicians across the country to help women just like Ashley. AbortionPillReversal.com (APR) operates a 24/7 hotline (877-558-0333) to help women who have changed their minds.

In 2012 Delgado published the first paper on this method following seven of the early cases. Four out of six had healthy pregnancies and reported no birth defects. With such a small sample, there are still plenty of questions. However, the first results were encouraging.

Five years later, APR success stories are over 300 and counting. Now, Delgado is working on a follow up paper which documents results for a much larger number of patients. They are still seeing a success rate between 60-70%. It stands to reason that the earlier a woman starts the progesterone, the better are the baby’s chances of survival. Even so, babies have been saved even in cases where they did not administer the first progesterone until 72 hours after taking the pill.

The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) have endorsed APR, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) criticize it. This is predictable. ACOG claims that the supplemental progesterone given for APR is not necessary, and that RU-486 is only effective 50-70% of the time. Not only is that a far cry different from what Ashley’s abortionist told her, it is not supported by research. Dr. Delgado calculates RU-486 effectiveness closer to 87%.

The dire warnings about birth defects have not materialized either. Progesterone has been used for decades to help women with at-risk pregnancies and there is no known correlation with birth defects. It turns out that any possibility of birth defects associated with the Abortion Pill are not associated with the first pill, RU-486, but with the second pill, misoprostol.

To ferret out these facts online you have to wade through a lot of static. The abortion lobby is not happy about APR. So, predictably, their allies in the media spew alarmist talking points against it. Among these, the small scope of the first published study is criticized as as inconclusive. Fair enough. But when that morphs into charges of “junk science,” they have grossly overstated the case.

That’s why, despite the static, states around the country are considering bills to inform women of the hope of Abortion Pill Reversal. Last week Governor Gary Herbert of Utah signed such a bill into law. Arkansas and South Dakota already have such laws, while Colorado, North Carolina, and Indiana are considering them as I write.

Nobody should be so pressured into an abortion that they act against their own deepest desires and best judgment. But it does happen every day in America. For times like these, we should all be thankful for the pioneering work of Drs. Harrison and Delgado.

I met Dr. Delgado two months ago. At the time, he told me that there were not yet any physicians in Wyoming that were part of the APR network. Let’s do something about that. Ask your local hospital, or pregnancy resource center about Abortion Pill Reversal. You may be the difference between hope and despair for someone you love.

Further Reading:
This ground-breaking abortion reversal kit has snatched 137 babies from the jaws of death, Lifesite News