(Oregon Right to Life) — Pharmacists in Washington state prescribed abortion pills to 43 women late last year as part of a new pilot program aimed at expanding abortion access. The news comes as abortion pills have become easier to access than ever before, heightening concerns among pro-life advocates about risks to the unborn and to pregnant moms.
Pro-abortion nonprofit Uplift International created the program – dubbed the Pharmacist Abortion Access Project (PAAP) – in partnership with online pharmacy Honeybee Health, Oregon Capital Chronicle reported. The 10 pharmacists recruited to take part in the pilot prescribed abortion pills to 43 women between October 31 and November 26 of last year.
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The program, the first of its kind in the U.S., is explicitly designed “to broaden abortion access by taking advantage of rules that give [pharmacists] prescribing ability in most states,” The New York Times reported. Abortion is legal until “viability” – around 24-26 weeks gestation – in Washington state, but pro-abortion activists like the organizers of PAAP want to target abortion-vulnerable women in the state with low incomes and those living in rural areas.
Dr. Beth Rivin, president and CEO of Uplift International, argued in comments to States Newsroom that research shows that abortion pills “can be prescribed through telehealth just as safely as in person” and “that pharmacists can specifically prescribe medication abortion.”
According to Rivin, the training pharmacists undergo through the program “mirrors the training that other providers receive.”
Don Downing, professor emeritus of pharmacy at the University of Washington and a co-director of the Pharmacist Abortion Access Project, told The New York Times that pharmacists provided patients with a hotline and followed up to check on them, asking “Have you had excessive bleeding or no bleeding? Do you have fever, pain, whatever?”
But pro-life advocacy organizations have emphasized that there are serious risks associated with the abortion pill – risks exacerbated by the recent regulatory relaxations by the Biden administration’s FDA, which included allowances for medical providers to prescribe the pills online and distribute them via mail or through pharmacies.
Those FDA rule changes have made it easier than ever to access chemical abortion, which accounted for 63% of all abortions performed in the U.S. in 2023, according to The Guttmacher Institute.
Chemical abortions are carried out using a two-drug sequence of mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone is taken to block the action of the growth hormone progesterone, starving the fetus to death. Misoprostol is taken 24–72 hours later to induce contractions to expel the body.
Known side effects of taking the abortion pill include severe bleeding, incomplete abortion, sepsis, and even death. Per the FDA, roughly 85% of women who take the abortion pill regimen report at least one adverse reaction, which can include “nausea, weakness, fever, vomiting, headache, diarrhea, and dizziness,” and up to 8% of women reportedly experience bleeding for more than 30 days. In 2022, two Georgia women died after taking the abortion pill when they suffered incomplete abortions and contracted sepsis.
READ: What is Chemical Abortion?
In light of the risks, Charlotte Lozier Institute vice president and director of medical affairs Dr. Ingrid Skop criticized the Pharmacist Abortion Access Project for putting pharmacists into the role of prescribing drugs that end unborn lives and present such serious risks for women.
“Pharmacists, who do not receive clinical training, should not be distributing these dangerous drugs,” Skop said in a statement cited by the Times. “By pushing these medically unsupervised abortions, the F.D.A. and abortion advocates continue down the slippery slope of chipping away at medical standards for women seeking abortion.”
Meanwhile, as pro-abortion activist groups seek to expand access to chemical abortion, pro-life advocates are interested in ensuring that women who regret their decision to abort are equipped with potentially life-saving resources.
Heartbeat International, a pro-life organization that currently manages the Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN) and supports more than 2,000 pro-life pregnancy resource centers in 50 countries around the world, noted in a November 20 press release that 6,000 babies have so far been saved from chemical abortions thanks to APRN.
Women who regret beginning the chemical abortion process can take progesterone within 24–72 hours after taking mifepristone (but before taking misoprostol) to stop the deadly effects. A 2018 peer-reviewed study on the use of progesterone to reverse the effects of mifepristone estimated a 64–68% success rate.
To learn more about the Abortion Pill Rescue Network, go to heartbeatinternational.org/our-work/apr.
If you or someone you know needs abortion pill reversal, visit abortionpillreversal.com.
Oregon Right to Life believes in the sanctity of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death. Abortion ends the life of a genetically distinct, growing human being. We oppose abortion at any point of gestation. In rare cases, a mother may have a life threatening condition in which medical procedures intended to treat the condition of the mother may result in the unintended death of her preborn baby. At the same time, ORTL recognizes that modern medical practice has and will continue to increase the ability to save both the life of the mother and the baby. Read this and all of our position statements here.
