A doctor based in Washington, D.C. reportedly urged the "dangerous idea" that women should already take abortion pills even before they get pregnant.
The National Right To Life reported that Advancing New Standards In Reproductive Health Director Dr. Daniel Grossman is advocating the use of abortion pills for women even before pregnancy.
"Dr. Daniel Grossman, an abortionist with ties to an organization recently funded by the abortion pill's manufacturer, has been promoting the unapproved and dangerous idea that abortionists should give women the abortion pill before they are even pregnant," the National Right To Life tweeted on Monday.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, an abortionist with ties to an organization recently funded by the abortion pill's manufacturer, has been promoting the unapproved and dangerous idea that abortionists should give women the abortion pill before they are even pregnant.https://t.co/bQahkzDiTh pic.twitter.com/EKQQGvXBRo
"” National Right to Life (@nrlc) October 4, 2021
The National Right To Life tweet links to a report written by its Director of Education and Research Randall O'Bannon on the danger of medication abortions. O'Bannon's report, entitled "Why 'Medication Abortions' Without Medical Exam or Medical Supervision Are A Really Bad Idea," cited Grossman's medical paper published in September 2019 regarding women's use of telemedicine in Utah and commentary on "no-test medication abortion" during the pandemic that appeared in several publications in 2020.
Grossman, along with several other doctors, stressed in the commentary that medication abortions is a beneficial protocol that was most useful during the pandemic and would persist even after the pandemic has been resolved. The said no-test use of such medication abortions provide "new venues" and "new categories" to providers that increase its "success rates."
O'Bannon pointed out that what Grossman, who is a staunch defender of abortion as a healthcare, and others like him advocate on the use of the abortion pills as easy and effective are contrary to what its users experience in real life.
"Even when they work, these abortions are bloody, painful, time-consuming...and complicated. The popular image of the drug induced chemical abortion as a relatively quick, easy, and painless procedure is at odds with the medical record and the experience of women who have actually taken the abortion pills," O'Bannon said.
O'Bannon explained that there are limits to the use of the abortion pills, which mainly depend on the period of the pregnancy of the person who wish to take it, and involve a process in its use that when not guided according by a medical professional can lead to deadly complications on the part of the woman.
"The standard chemical or 'medical' abortion, even when successful, involves several steps, not one, but two drugs, multiple pills, taken over a period of a couple of days, involving substantial pain and bleeding that may take weeks to be complete," O'Bannon pointed out.
"To be used as safely and effectively as possible, potential patients should be screened to make sure they are not over the gestational limit, do not have an ectopic pregnancy, and have no allergies or conditions that would make the pills ineffective or dangerous."
O'Bannon also explained that abortion pills like Mifepristone take time to work that range from a couple of days to even a weeks after. He highlighted that Mifepristone works only with the other drug that "stimulates powerful contractions" leading to severe discomfort on the part of the woman who eventually suffers psychological challenges in the process due to the confusion on the heavy bleeding experienced being normal.
Despite these inconveniences, O'Bannon said that abortion pills "don't always work" such that "2 to 7 out of 100 women" who took it had to end up in surgery to end the bleeding. He underscored that as gestation increases so does the failure rates of abortion pills. Yet abortion providers advertise that the said medications can be taken even "beyond those specified on the FDA label."
This then leads to more problems for women due to their "failed and incomplete abortion" since "failure of the drugs means, for many of these women, surgery to complete the abortion or to stop the bleeding."
