And pioneer study that analyzes the public health insurance records in the United States found that more than 1 in 10 women who take the mifepristone abortive pill to complete a chemical abortion will suffer a serious health complication during the process.
The study, which analyzed 865,727 patients between 2017 and 2023, was published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) on April 28, and discovered that 10.93% of women suffer at least one “serious adverse event” within 45 days after the Mifepristone for an abortion.
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“This is not a mere speculation; it is based on the largest data set we know,” said Ryan T. Anderson, president of the EPPC and one of the study authors, Ewtn.
More than 4.7% of women had to go to emergencies related to abortion, more than 3.3% suffered bleeding and more than 1.3% presented infections. Thousands were hospitalized, more than 1,000 needed blood transfusions and hundreds suffered sepsis. About 2,000 women experienced other potentially fatal adverse events.
In 2.84% of cases, chemical abortion was failed and subsequently completed by surgical abortion. In several thousand cases, an ectopic pregnancy was not detected.
The study of the EPPC is the most complete research carried out to date on the subject and suggests that the controlled environment of the previous clinical trials – some of which they reported rates of adverse events as low as 0.5% – does not reflect the real consequences of the general use of the abortive pill in an increasingly regulated market.
As the study points out, the Food and Medicines Administration (FDA) deregulated the mifepristone in 2016 under the administration of President Barack Obama and again in 2023 under the administration of President Joe Biden.
The FDA reduced the number of face -to -face medical visits necessary to obtain mining from three to one in 2016, and then at zero in 2023. It also eliminated in 2016 the requirements that the medications were dispensed by a doctor, that they were taken in an office, that there was a mandatory monitoring appointment and that adverse events were reported. In 2023, it also allowed the mail delivery of medicines.
Before the 2016 changes, the mifepristone could only be used until the first seven weeks of pregnancy. The review during the Obama government extended this limit to the first 10 weeks.
Currently, more than half of all abortions in the United States are carried out through Mifepristona.
“Now, due to Obama and Biden, the abortive pills are taken alone, at home, at the request by mail,” said Anderson and the study co -author Jamie Bryan Hall, director of Data Analysis of the EPPC data, in a joint statement.
“The abortion industry tells women that the abortive pill is as safe as Tylenol,” they said. “That is fundamentally false, and women deserve to know the truth. Because most women do not receive truthful information about these medications, they are terribly unsuspecting before subsequent complications.”
And British study Published at the end of last year confirmed this reality, revealing that many women reported not being prepared for the pain they experienced with chemical abortion. Almost half experienced more pain than they expected and some warned that, during the consultations, it “minimized or” sweetened “information about the level of pain.
Christina Francis, Gineco-Obstetra in exercise and executive director of the American-Obstetras Provida (AAPLOG), declared CNA-Ewtn News Advancement-that the EPPC data “confirm what we are seeing in real clinical practice” and that “I even based on my own clinical experience, I know that these medications are not safe.”
Francis reported the case of a patient who tried recently, who had asked for the abortive pills online. The woman requested the medicine while nine weeks pregnant, but when she took it, she was “much more advanced” than he thought, which caused several health complications that required surgery.
He also mentioned a colleague who attended a patient whose baby was expelled when the body had the “palm size of his hand”, suggesting that chemical abortion occurred beyond the “legal limit.”
“He saw her baby and it was very, very traumatic for her. This is happening in emergency rooms throughout the country,” said Francis.
Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, a senior bioeticist of the National Catholic Center for Bioethics (NCBC), told CNA that the report “reminds us again how these toxic agents do not even belong to the field of medicine, which in its essence is a Ministry of Healing, since they point directly to the life of unborn human patients.”
“Instead of leaving women to their fate, when the overwhelming evidence indicates that this powerful drug has a high probability of causing sepsis, infection, bleeding or other potentially mortal outcomes, women have the right to a more strict regulation on those who distribute these medications, as well as better follow-up and control after their self-administration,” Pacholczyk added.
EPPC asks Trump administration for review
EPPC researchers urged the administration of President Donald Trump to review the current regulations and restore the security measures that existed before the deregulations promoted by the administrations of Obama and Biden.
This would require three face -to -face visits to the doctor and confirm that pregnancy remains within the first seven weeks, as originally demanded. I would also demand that the medicine be prescribed by a doctor and administered in person, and would restore the mandatory report of adverse events.
“We have hope that the Trump administration does the right thing,” Anderson told Ewtn News.
Trump has promised that he will not prohibit the abortive pill, but did not rule out the possibility of regulating these medications. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said earlier this year that he planned to investigate security concerns related to the minifepristone.
“Even citizens in favor of abortion should want to ensure that women make an informed decision, based on all facts, and that any medicine they consume is safe,” Anderson and Hall said in their joint statement to CNA.
Christina Francis agreed, stressing: “We cannot put access to abortion above the care and safety of patients.”
“This should be something that we can all coincide and unite,” he concluded.
Translated and adapted by ACI Press. Originally published in CNA.
Tyler Arnold
Tyler Arnold is a reporter of the National Catholic Register. He previously worked at The Center Square and has published in various media, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative and The Federalist.