The pro-life movement’s cultural success over the past several years is even more incredible when you consider that its opponents and their allies in Big Tech fight tooth and nail to suppress its message.
Just this week, Google removed and blocked advertisements from pro-life group Live Action, including ads about a medical treatment used to reverse the abortion pill and a video depicting how an unborn child develops in the womb. Live Action President Lila Rose shared a screenshot of the notification she received from Google, which says the ads were removed for using “restricted drug terms,” “restricted medical content,” “health in personalized advertising,” and “misleading content.”
There is nothing medically misleading about abortion pill reversal treatment. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and several states actually require abortion providers to inform patients that it is available to them if they would like to change course after taking the first dose of the abortion pill. A case series on the treatment, which is basically just a high dose of progesterone, found that it was both “safe and effective.” Nearly 70% of women who chose to reverse the abortion pill were able to carry their pregnancies to term, and there was no “apparent increased risk of birth defects.”
Abortionists who claim the treatment is “medically unsafe” ignore the fact that progesterone is not only a commonly used hormonal treatment with well-known effects, it is also the exact hormone attacked by abortion pills. Reintroducing it to the body to reverse the effects of an abortion pill isn’t some quack remedy.
Moreover, the claim that the treatment is unsafe isn’t supported by any actual evidence. Notice how, in criticism of the treatment by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which Google is citing to justify its crackdown on Live Action, ACOG does not once mention a single case in which the treatment has had negative effects. And that’s because the evidence that it is harmful is flimsy at best and outright dishonest at worst.
Take, for example, an oft-cited 2019 study that suggests abortion pill reversal might be harmful to women. The researchers said they had to end the study early due to concerns about the treatment’s risks. Twelve women were involved, half were given the reversal pill after taking the first dose of the abortion pill, and the other half were given a placebo. Three of the women had to be taken to the hospital for vaginal bleeding, so the researchers called things off.
However, it turned out that only one of the women who experienced bleeding received the reversal pill. The other two had been given the placebo.
In other words, there is absolutely no evidence that the bleeding these women experienced was caused by the reversal pill — quite the opposite, actually. The bleeding was more likely caused by the abortion pill itself. Yet that tiny study has been framed in such a way as to suggest that it was the reversal pill, rather than the abortion pill, that was the problem.
This deceptive framing is intentional. Abortion advocates will do anything to censor and suppress the pro-life message, even if that means taking options away from women who might be experiencing abortion regret. It is shameful that Big Tech is helping them do it.
