United States – The attorney general of New York on Monday filed a suit against Heartbeat International, an anti-abortion organization, and 11 crisis pregnancy centers over the allegations that they deceitfully put women’s health at risk by claiming the possibility of reversing the effect of abortion pill mifepristone.
Misleading Claims
In the case, the New York Attorney General Letitia James has demanded a state court in Manhattan to rule that Heartbeat International and the centers across New York state, whose goal is to persuade women against having abortions, cannot advertise abortion pill reversal on the website or anywhere else and award an unspecified number of damages to the plaintiff(s), as reported by Reuters.
“Abortions cannot be reversed,” James said in a statement. “Any treatments that claim to do so are made without scientific evidence and could be unsafe.”
Even after we had requested them about giving a comment, we did not have any answer from the Heartbeat International.
Mifepristone regimen is one of two options, which are most commonly used for medical abortion. These are the first drugs accessible for the patient’s given approval by the FDA. Of the abortions in the US that were carried out in 2022, nearly 70% were administered through medicines.
Scientific Reality
The advocates of the medication abortion reversal suggest that a synthetic progesterone compound may negate the influence of mifepristone. No evidence from controlled clinical trials is seen by which the method has been approved as safe or effective. While American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does not endorse the practice, on the other hand, there is no scientific evidence for the approval of the treatment.
New York filed its litigation at the same time when the Supreme Court is about to rule on another case involving abortion opponents who want to lack of access to mifepristone everywhere in the US. However, this new development should not undermine the role of medical professionals like Dr. George Delgado, the plaintiff in the George Delgado case and a member of the medical advisory board of Heartbeat International, who has received credit for the abortion pill reversal.
The international anti-abortion group named Heartbeat International is connected with more than 2,000 crisis pregnancy centers all over the US. The website of the organization is its medium of communication where women can get linked to providers who can do pill reversal for abortion.
Legal Landscape
Crisis pregnancy centers of the type that render services to pregnant women with the aim of preventing them from aborting. The directory that goes with HBI has all the centers named in James’ lawsuit, and nine of them are the ones who pay the mentioned organization an annual fee for being named as affiliates, the lawsuit says.
At least some of those centers’ websites appear to provide abortion pill reversal. In contrast, others refer the visitors to HBIa’s “Abortion Pill Reversal Network,” as mentioned in the complaint of James, as reported by Reuters.
Continued Advocacy
The California attorney general filed another lawsuit, similar to this one, against HBI and crisis pregnancy center affiliates last September.
In October of last year, a federal judge disapproved a ban on abortion pill reversal treatment in Colorado. Subsequently, an out-of-state judge in Kansas also blocked a state law which required healthcare providers to disclose to patients that medicine abortion can be reversed.