The Media Research Center, led by anti-abortion extremist Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, has continued to rail against abortion pills since the last time we checked in last fall. Mandelburg spent an Oct. 23 post complaining that Colorado officials are following the science and banning use of a pill promoted by anti-abortion activists as reversing the effects of mifepristone:
The abortion scene in Colorado has been playing ping-pong on the issue of abortion drugs and abortion pill reversal. Its latest move puts the ball in the court of pro-lifers.
Late Saturday evening, Judge Daniel Domencio blocked a state ban that prohibited pregnancy centers from administering abortion pill reversal drugs for mothers who start the process of an abortion but then change their mind, saying the ban violated the First Amendment religious and speech rights for the staff at the Bella Health pregnancy center.
The Bella Health and Wellness center was founded by a Catholic mother and daughter duo. They’re both nurse practitioners and their center offers help to men, women and children and focuses on establishing life-affirming care. One of the things the clinic offers is progesterone, which is a naturally occurring hormone that is blocked when women take the first of two abortion drugs, mifepristone. Studies have shown that taking a progesterone drug, even after an abortion has started, can flood a woman’s body with enough of the hormone to kickstart her pregnancy and prohibit mifepristone from killing her child.
Mandelburg censored the fact that no credible research shows that progesterone works in reversing mifepristone.
In a Dec. 14 post, Jorge Bonilla cheered then-presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for refusing to directly answer a question about abortion pills in a TV interview:
GOP Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy shut down CNN town hall host Abby Phillip’s framing on the question of the U.S. Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari regarding abortion drug Mifepristone.
Watch as Ramaswamy moves Phillip’s question off of its abortion frame, and on to the issue of a runaway administrative state- as aired on CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall with Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday, December 13th, 2023[.] […]
Phillip tried to set the question up as a “restriction to access to abortion” question, and had Ramaswamy stayed on that frame, they would have remained there and gone into a discussion of when and under what conditions is it appropriate to grant access to the drug.
But Ramaswamy spots this and moves off abortion and into administrative law. Ramaswamy brought up West Virginia v. EPA, the runaway regulatory agencies, and it’s a miracle he didn’t bring up the current challenge to Chevron, which will be heard in this term.
Mandelburg spent a Jan. 5 post peddling an apparently unverified sob story about a woman who underwent a “chemical abortion” — the scary anti-abortion lingo for the abortion pill — and had complications afterward:
The sad part is, Planned Parenthood, and the left in general, rarely, if ever, talk about these sorts of stories. They paint the idea that the abortion pill is safe, harmless and a great option, when the reality is that they are far from safe whatsoever for the woman or her child.
[…]Now, can I somehow go back and corroborate Desiree’s story? No. But Desiree isn’t the only one who’s shared about the heartbreaking reality of what a chemical abortion is and does. This information needs to be shared, not silenced by Planned Parenthood and the leftist regime.
Mandelburg won’t tell you that the abortion pill is safer than childbirth for women (though anti-abortion activists have a different, politically motivated spin).
Luis Cornelio spent a March 5 post complaining that right-wing scaremongering about abortion pills was called out — and hyping a right-wing court case seeking to ban the pills:
YouTube has been put on notice after placing labels on videos against abortion and downplaying the dangers of such medical procedures ahead of a Supreme Court case on abortion pills.
[…]First reported by The Daily Signal, the letter came after YouTube targeted a video by legal advocacy group ADF. The pro-life legal advocacy group featured the harrowing story of Elizabeth Gillette—an activist and author who faced complications after undergoing a medical abortion without medical supervision.
“The pain was so severe and I was so scared and I was bleeding so heavily I thought I was going to die,” a visibly emotional Gillette said in the minute-long YouTube clip. “There’s nothing like completely abandoned in the greatest moment of need. I didn’t have a nurse, I didn’t have a doctor.”
In response to the video, YouTube placed a “context” banner under the video to define abortion. The context banner linked to the U.S. government National Library of Medicine website and peddled the demonstrably false claim: “The procedure is done by a licensed healthcare professional.”
YouTube’s claim is detached from reality as the Food Drug Administration notoriously relaxed in 2016 the decades-long requirement that medical professionals perform medical abortions. Under the new procedure, women may receive abortion pills via virtual appointments and even by mail.
This move ignited a legal battle that has made its way to the Supreme Court, with the justices scheduled to hear the FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case on March 26. The 16 attorneys general suggested that YouTube’s false claim is at odds with the facts in the case.
Two days later, Mandelburg wailed that businesses are selling legal products:
On Friday, two of the nation’s largest pharmacy retailers announced they’d start selling abortion pills on their shelves. This decision comes just weeks before the Supreme Court is set to reach a verdict on a case insisting that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) distribution of mail order abortion pills is dangerous and reckless.
CVS and Walgreens “received certification from the FDA to dispense mifepristone to consumers,” Townhall reported. The same report indicated that mifepristone’s accessibility at CVS will begin in stores in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and that Walgreens will roll out the pill in select pharmacy locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois.
“We continually monitor and evaluate changes in state laws and will dispense mifepristone in any state where it is or becomes legally permissible to do so,” CVS Spokesperson Amy Thibault said according to The New York Times.
This is incredibly harmful and nerve wracking for women and babies. Putting a pill that, if successful, kills at least one person on a shelf in a pharmacy gives off the impression that doing so is not a big deal.
Mandelburg also hyped a claim that abortion pills are “four times more dangerous” than surgical abortions — but didn’t mention she wants to outlaw surgical abortions too.
Mandelburg pushed more anti-abortion propaganda in a March 20 post:
Abortion pills are probably the most dangerous way to kill your kid in the womb.
A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, an overtly pro-abort group, indicated that of all the abortions that took place in 2023, more than 60 percent of them were conducted through chemical abortions induced by the abortion pill. This study comes just before the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments surrounding mifepristone, one of the two pills involved in the abortion pill regimen.
The uptick in abortions using pills rose after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022. With SCOTUS pushing decisions on abortion laws back to the states, many areas used the opportunity to broaden abortion access while others took the decision to push more pro-life laws and protect innocent life.
“As abortion restrictions proliferate post-Dobbs, medication abortion may be the most viable option – or the only option – for some people, even if they would have preferred in-person procedural care,” Guttmacher principal research scientist Rachel Jones said.
[…]An important thing to note is that the abortion pill is not safe. The pills not only promote abortion as something that’s casual but they put women at extreme risk and, if successful, kill at least one human being. As a matter of fact, medication abortion has been reported to be “four times more dangerous” than surgical abortions and has reportedly increased abortion-related ER visits by 500 percent from 2002-2015.
She too hyped the upcoming court case: “Next Tuesday the Supreme Court will hear a case between the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, which will likely point out the FDA’s negligence in researching these pills and how dangerous they really are.” Written like a true propagandist.