Whether a woman was coerced into taking abortion drugs or simply realizes she made a mistake, it may not be too late to save her baby within the first 72 hours of taking the first drug. This was the case for Miranda Halstead, who found information about progesterone treatment — sometimes called “abortion pill reversal” or “APR” — on a pregnancy resource center website in New York.
Miranda’s baby is alive and well today because she heard about APR and made the choice to try to save her unborn child.
That apparently didn’t sit well with New York Attorney General Letitia James. In May, she sued the center that saved Baby Halstead’s life and also sued 10 other centers that provide similar life-saving information to women. According to James, state law prohibits centers from telling women about this option because, as she alleges, APR doesn’t work.
But she’s wrong, as Baby Halstead — and approximately 5,000 other babies that have been saved through this treatment — proves. Apparently, for James, women only have one choice: completing an abortion. When it comes to a mother changing her mind to save her baby, that’s not acceptable to the AG.
Unlike abortion facilities, which have a large financial interest in performing as many abortions as possible, the pregnancy care centers we run charge nothing for our services. Our faith-based, pro-life centers — Options Care Center in Jamestown and Gianna’s House in Brewster — support pregnant women and their families throughout pregnancy and beyond, completely free of charge.
We provide self-administered pregnancy tests, peer counseling, material aid, motherhood and fatherhood groups, educational classes, and compassionate post-abortion support. We also partner with medical professionals who provide no-cost STI testing, ultrasounds, and progesterone treatment.
We want to empower women, including giving a woman the option of choosing life for her unborn child, even if she has already started the chemical abortion process and then changes her mind. But just telling a woman about this potentially life-saving option has placed pregnancy care centers out of favor with the attorney general.
Our pro-life pregnancy centers would like to inform women about the option to save their babies after beginning the abortion drug process. All of the statements we would like to make about the safety and effectiveness of progesterone treatment are true, supported by science, and not misleading.
But the attorney general is using her power to deny women who do not wish to complete a chemical abortion the freedom to continue their pregnancies by attempting to censor our truthful statements. Her recent lawsuit against faith-based, pro-life pregnancy centers alleges — despite evidence to the contrary — that the centers are spreading “false and misleading” information about this progesterone treatment.
Progesterone is a natural hormone needed to sustain pregnancy and has been used for decades to prevent miscarriage and forestall preterm labor safely and effectively. Statistics suggest that abortion pill reversal has likely saved thousands of unborn lives, and studies have shown up to a 64-68% success rate. Women deserve access to this information.
The attorney general is unlawfully targeting pro-life pregnancy care centers — threatening punishment for promoting and offering a service that gives women the option of changing their minds and attempting to save their babies.
Indeed, James has violated our constitutionally protected, truthful speech under threat of “injunctive relief, restitution, damages, civil penalties, auditing and compliance review, costs, and such other” ruinous relief as she can obtain from the courts.
So, with the help of our legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom, and along with the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, we filed a lawsuit of our own against James. Such actions from a government official violate our First Amendment rights, and last month a federal judge in Buffalo agreed.
In its decision granting our motion for a preliminary injunction, the court held that “the First Amendment protects Plaintiffs’ right to speak freely about APR protocol and, more specifically, to say that it is safe and effective for a pregnant woman to use in consultation with her doctor.”
James may not like it, but the truth is that many women regret their abortions, and some seek to stop the effects of chemical abortion drugs before taking the second drug in the abortion drug process. Taking progesterone at that time can often save a baby’s life, and every woman deserves the freedom to make that choice.
No government official has the authority to restrict what information is available to women, especially when it comes to saving a life.
Andersen is executive director of Options Care Center in Jamestown. Noce is executive director of Gianna’s House in Brewster.