Colorado sued for banning abortion pill reversal treatment
Breccan F. Thies Eden Villalovas
A Colorado Catholic clinic was granted a temporary exemption this weekend from a new state law that makes it illegal to offer women abortion “reversal” drugs.
Bella Health and Wellness, a nonprofit anti-abortion Catholic health center, filed suit nearly immediately after Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) signed a bill Friday afternoon making progesterone treatment, reversing a chemical abortion, illegal in the state.
OB-GYNS DISPUTE SAFETY OF ABORTION PILL
The suit was filed against the Centennial State’s attorney general, the Colorado Medical Board, the Colorado State Board of Nursing, and three district attorneys.
The medical board is expected to make a decision by Oct. 1, 2023, to determine if progesterone can be used to reverse the effects of mifepristone.
Judge Daniel D. Domenico, a Trump appointee, placed a temporary restraining order on enforcement of the law.
Progesterone is a naturally occurring hormone vital to the maintenance of the uterus during pregnancy and establishing of the placenta. If taken early enough, advocates believe it can also be used as a treatment to reverse the effects of the abortion pill mifepristone, the first pill in a two-pill chemical abortion regiment, which blocks progesterone to trigger a miscarriage.
The Colorado bill, the only one of its kind in the United States, targets “anti-abortion centers, also known as ‘crisis pregnancy centers'” as part of the “ground-level presence of a well-coordinated anti-choice movement.”
Stating such a treatment option amounts to a “deceptive trade practice” and “false advertising,” the bill also says progesterone treatment is “not supported by science.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found there is a lack of evidence that indicates prescribing progesterone stops a medication abortion.
According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute and Bella Health, however, progesterone can be prescribed within 72 hours of a mifepristone dosage to “outnumber and outcompete the mifepristone in order to reverse the effects.”
Bella Health says its doctors have “used progesterone this way for thousands of women, over several decades of practice.” The clinic argues it feels “religiously compelled to offer this treatment.”
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According to CLI Vice President and Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Ingrid Skop, who has been an obstetrician-gynecologist for over 25 years, medical groups like the American Medical Association and ACOG that claim progesterone treatment is unscientific are doing so to maintain their “pro-abortion bias.”
Those institutions’ claims are based on the fact that there are no studies with a randomized control group to obtain information on the treatment, something Skop told the Washington Examiner would pose significant ethical concerns.
“What that means is if a woman presents, and she wants to reverse the mifepristone, she has to be randomized into a group that gets progesterone and a group that doesn’t [through placebo],” she explained. “That’s unethical because she wants to try to do what she can to save her baby, and to say, ‘In order to have a chance, you’re going to have to be randomized, and 50% of you are not going to get the chance to save the baby’ … it’s unfair to say the standard requires a placebo.”
Skop said the initial approval of mifepristone did not require a random control for ethical reasons, either, because some women seeking abortions were going to get a placebo. The best data on progesterone treatments come from “retrospective review,” which is ongoing.
Saying she has prescribed progesterone to reverse mifepristone, Skop said, “In practice, women do continue their pregnancies. It does save babies, [but] it doesn’t save them all.”
Bella Health has retained the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to represent them in the case.
“This is perfectly legal treatment, whether it’s California or Alabama or, however pro-choice or pro-life state you want to think of, and all of them, it’s legal for a woman who doesn’t want to continue with an abortion to stop taking the pills and to try their best to keep a pregnancy,” Becket Fund President Mark Rienzi told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a terrible law that’s bad for women and bad for doctors and nurses who are trying to help women.”
Counsel Laura Wolk Slavis added, “Colorado’s new law is the opposite of choice. It targets women who have changed their minds and forces them to undergo abortions they want to stop.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In a statement issued Friday, Polis said, “The standards of practice for medicine should be left to appointed medical professionals in the State driven by the ongoing process of science.”
Conor Cahill, a press secretary for Polis, told the Washington Examiner on Monday, “We will not comment on this pending litigation, and the governor stands by a woman’s right to choose.”