According to Colorado Politics, the effort to ban abortion pill reversal (APR) just took another step forward in the state.
The Colorado Medical Board recently declared that abortion pill reversal is “unprofessional conduct” and that doctors who offer it could be reprimanded, and now the Colorado Pharmacy Board and the Colorado Nursing Board have refused to classify abortion pill reversal as accepted practice despite evidence showing it is safe and effective.
Though the pharmacy and nursing boards stopped short of calling abortion pill reversal ‘unprofessional,’ they did not lend it their approval, either.
In August, the Colorado Medical Board initially refused to label abortion pill reversal as unprofessional conduct, before changing course just a week later. The board then said abortion pill reversal is outside of the “generally accepted standard of practice,” and doctors who participate in it will face an investigation before the board. The Colorado Nursing Board has remained in line with the Medical Board’s original decision but says it will treat instances of abortion pill reversal on a case-by-case basis.
Abortion pill reversal involves the use of progesterone taken either orally or injected to counteract the effects of the first drug of the abortion pill regimen, mifepristone. Mifepristone acts to block the naturally occurring pregnancy hormone progesterone before a woman takes the second drug, misoprostol, which causes contractions to expel the baby. If a woman regrets taking mifepristone and wants to try to save her baby’s life, the time-sensitive use of progesterone may be able to help her do that. Progesterone has long been administered to women at risk of miscarriage.
READ: Abortion pill reversal saved her baby after she regretted taking the first dose
“The (nursing) board, historically, has pretty much treated everything case-by-case for review and discipline,” Joe Franta, president of the nursing board, said during the vote. “We don’t make general standards of care. We don’t create those.”
This is a similar stance, again, to the Medical Board, which historically has not created rules about a standard of care for a single treatment, but instead investigates individual complaints about the care provided by a doctor.
Yet pro-abortion Democrats are still hoping to push the Nursing Board into standing firmly against the lifesaving procedure. “I still feel optimistic,” Rep. Karen McCormick said, according to Colorado Politics. “The nursing board was unable to put in rules that they see this practice as generally accepted standard of care, so that’s a positive.”
She continued, “They decided to take the ambiguous route. But the nursing board didn’t put in their rules that it is generally accepted standard of care so, in a way, that just defaults back to the bill. The bill stands.”
The bill McCormick referred to is SB23-190, officially classifying abortion pill reversal as unprofessional conduct. All three of the state’s boards had to agree in order for the bill to stand. It is likely that abortion pill reversal will remain labeled as “unprofessional conduct” because of the Colorado Medical Board’s decision to rule it as such.
“I still think people should have the choice to use this. If they discuss it with their doctor and this is what they want to do, then they can try it,” Eric Frazer, vice president of the pharmacy board, said during a meeting. “It’s not dangerous to the patient as far as what I have seen.”
