Lozier Institute Statement on Abortion Pill Lawsuit Filed by Alliance Defending Freedom

Medicaid Data Shows Abortion Pill-Related Emergency Room Visits Have Spiked by More Than 500%

Washington, D.C. – Charlotte Lozier Institute, which in 2021 revealed a dramatic surge in abortion pill-related emergency room visits, today applauded Alliance Defending Freedom for challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) erroneous and highly-politicized approval of the abortion drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol, which redefined pregnancy as an “illness.”

Mifepristone starves the unborn baby of hormonal support.  When used as part of the abortion drug regimen, misoprostol induces contractions to expel the baby and placental tissue from the uterus.

Dr. Ingrid Skop, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., who has personally treated many abortion pill-related complications as an OB/GYN, said:

“I’ve performed at least a dozen surgeries on women who experienced complications when the abortion pills failed.  I’ve cared for several women who took mifepristone and misoprostol and required blood transfusions or treatment for severe infections, and I’ve counseled women who experienced significant emotional distress after viewing the body of their easily identifiable child in the toilet.

“Out here in Texas, away from the pro-abortion pundits and politicians, OB/GYNs are regularly called upon to address serious abortion pill complications that Planned Parenthood fails to treat and which the FDA doesn’t even bother to track.  Right now, the abortion pill is promoted as safe under a ‘see no evil, hear no evil, report no data on evil’ regime that puts the life and health of women and girls at risk.

“Alliance Defending Freedom files their lawsuit at a critical time, when the mainstream media and even the White House are willfully ignoring the known risks of abortion pills in pursuit of a pro-abortion political agenda.”

Dr. Skop is a practicing OB/GYN who serves as Director of Medical Affairs at Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Last year, Lozier Institute scholars analyzed 17 years of comprehensive Medicaid claims data and discovered that the rate of abortion pill-related emergency room visits increased over 500% from 2002 through 2015 (the most recent data available).  Lozier Institute scholars also found that by 2015, a majority of the abortion pill-related emergency room visits were miscoded as spontaneous miscarriages, which according to a follow-up analysis increased the likelihood of a woman being admitted for surgery.

Unlike most abortion studies, which typically rely on paid surveys, small sample sizes, or use data that excludes non-fatal complications, the Lozier Institute scholars were the first researchers to utilize Medicaid claims data to conduct a 17-year longitudinal analysis of 423,000 confirmed abortions and 121,283 confirmed subsequent visits to an emergency room within 30 days of the abortion.

Dr. James Studnicki, Sc.D., Lozier Institute’s vice president of data analytics and lead author of the abortion pill studies, explained:

“The safety of chemical abortion is greatly exaggerated.  In fact, the increasing dominance of chemical abortion and its disproportionate contribution to emergency room morbidity is a serious public health threat, and the real-world data suggests that threat is growing.

“Our peer-reviewed research should alarm anyone who claims to be pro-woman, yet the current trend among pro-abortion politicians, bureaucrats, and their allies in the media is to turn a blind eye.  It shouldn’t take a lawsuit for the FDA to address a public health threat, but I’m grateful that Alliance Defending Freedom has taken this necessary action.”

Over a span of four decades, Dr. Studnicki held academic appointments at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, the University of South Florida College of Public Health, and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, where for ten years he served as the Irwin Belk Endowed Chair in Health Services Research.

Lozier Institute’s first-of-its-kind study, “A Longitudinal Cohort Study of Emergency Room Utilization Following Mifepristone Chemical and Surgical Abortions, 1999-2015”, was published in November 2021 in the international peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology.  The follow-up study, “A Post Hoc Exploratory Analysis: Induced Abortion Complications Mistaken for Miscarriage in the Emergency Room are a Risk Factor for Hospitalization,” was published in May 2022.

Charlotte Lozier Institute was launched in 2011 as the education and research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. CLI is a hub for research and public policy analysis on some of the most pressing issues facing the United States and nations around the world. The Institute is named for a feminist physician known for her commitment to the sanctity of human life and equal career and educational opportunities for women.

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