Following the release of a study in Nature Medicine, which discussed the “safety and effectiveness” of abortion drugs acquired through telehealth, Tessa Longbons Cox, senior research associate at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, made the following statement:
Once again, the abortion industry is relying on patchwork, piecemeal survey data to conclude that abortion drugs are “safe and effective,” but there are key gaps in the study that should call into question this conclusion. With a 74% follow-up rate, we don’t know what happened to a quarter of the women in the study. We know that the women who feel the most negative reactions following their abortions are least likely to participate in follow ups, and FDA data shows that women who have been harmed by abortion frequently end up seeking care from another doctor. Those missing voices are a crucial piece to the clinical puzzle as we can’t assume that those women had a positive outcome.
Ingrid Skop, M.D., FACOG, a board-certified OB/GYN who has practiced in Texas for nearly 30 years and vice president and director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, added the following:
As a practicing OB-GYN who frequently sees women in the ER following the use of abortion drugs, I’m deeply troubled by the authors’ definition of a “serious adverse event” as the only endpoint worth considering. They define it as a complication requiring a blood transfusion, intra-abdominal surgery (for ectopic pregnancy), overnight stay in hospital, and death, appearing to dismiss any other events as minor inconveniences. I have treated women who:
- Required emergency surgery to remove dead tissue from the child or placenta that her uterus was unable to expel.
- Bled heavily for six to eight weeks, becoming chronically fatigued by anemia but not reaching a blood count low enough to require transfusion.
- Contracted an intrauterine infection requiring additional medical care and antibiotics, which could possibly lead to future infertility from scar tissue of the reproductive organs.
According to these authors, my patients’ experiences would not qualify as a “serious adverse event.” It’s extraordinary to see these serious complications dismissed and considered not worthy of discussion, when I know these women felt otherwise.
