Arizona has agreed to delay the implementation of its recently-signed abortion pill reversal law over a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood and pro-choice doctors, the Arizona Republic reports.
In recent years, pro-life physicians and activists have taken to exploring and promoting the possibility of abortion pill reversal, in which someone who changes her mind after taking the first pill of RU-486 treatment, mifepristone, undergoes progesterone therapy to reverse its effects and save her child’s life.
Pro-abortion commentators and activists have bitterly denounced the concept as junk science supported by no hard medical evidence. The lawsuit claims Arizona’s law is unconstitutional on both First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds—the former for requiring doctors to give “a state-mandated message that is not medically or scientifically supported,” the latter for inflicting “false, misleading and/or irrelevant information” on patients.
However, doctors in Nebraska, California, and Arizona all report specific cases of successfully stopping chemical abortions begun at Planned Parenthoods. The Arizona location had told the woman reversal was impossible and not taking the second pill would cause new complications, while the California one had refused to let her hear her baby’s heartbeat. In all, AbortionPillReversal.com, which represents 226 pro-life OB/GYNs, claims to have saved 77 lives since 2012.
Originally set to take effect on July 3, the law’s fate will now be decided at a hearing in September or October.
