Letitia James Sues Crisis Pregnancy Centers For Being Weird Liars

They need to stop telling people they can 'reverse abortions.'

May 07, 2024

Crisis pregnancy centers exist, more or less, for the explicit purpose of misinformation. They masquerade as actual abortion clinics, hoping to reel in confused pregnant people and convince them not to have abortions. They masquerade as medical clinics of some kind despite almost never having any doctors or even nurses on staff. They also, apparently, often lie and claim that the abortion pill can be “reversed” when it, in fact, cannot.

Thankfully, New York state Attorney General Letitia James is cracking down on that last one, filing suits against anti-abortion-rights group Heartbeat International and 11 crisis pregnancy centers in New York that have been pushing Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) treatments that don’t work and which are quite dangerous.

James alleges that “making false and misleading claims about APR to convince pregnant people to get the treatment constitutes fraud, deceptive business practices, and false advertising under New York law,” all of which is very literally true.

The “treatment” occurs after a patient has taken mifepristone, the first drug in the abortion pill cocktail, but before they have taken the second drug, misoprostol. The patient is given progesterone, which proponents claim counteracts the effects of the mifepristone.

The only clinical trial of APR, in 2019, was halted after three of the participants had to be rushed to the hospital due to severe bleeding (one taking progesterone, two who got the placebo) and two others left due to severe “nausea, vomiting, and bleeding.” Misoprostol, you see, is the thing that helps the uterus fully expel the fetus, and thus is a fairly necessary part of the process. Without that, things can go pretty wrong.

“Abortions cannot be reversed. Any treatments that claim to do so are made without scientific evidence and could be unsafe,” Attorney General James said in an official statement. “Heartbeat International and the other crisis pregnancy center defendants are spreading dangerous misinformation by advertising 'abortion reversals' without any medical and scientific proof. Amid the increase in attacks on reproductive health care nationwide, we must protect pregnant people’s right to make safe, well-informed decisions about their health. Your reproductive health care decisions are yours and yours alone, and my office will always protect New Yorkers from those who push a scientifically unproven and potentially life-threatening intervention.”

Good for her!

Admittedly, I have never been able to fully grasp why this is a thing for anti-abortion folks. If it were true, sure! I’d get it! That would make sense for them, because they want more babies. But as an outright lie, I’m not clear on how it works in their favor. I guess they just don’t care so much about the lives of born humans and are just willing to risk a few of them on the off chance that it could work.

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Attorney General James is looking to stop Heartbeat International and the crisis pregnancy centers in New York from making fraudulent claims like these about the effectiveness of the treatment:

“Can the abortion pill be reversed? The simple answer is yes! If done in time.”
“There is an effective process called abortion pill reversal* that can reverse the effects of the abortion pill and allow you to continue your pregnancy, but time is of the essence.”
“Using the natural hormone progesterone, medical professionals have been able to save 64-68% of pregnancies through abortion pill reversal.”
Attempting to reverse an abortion will give you shinier, more manageable hair. (fine, that’s a joke, but could you really tell the difference?)

James is also seeking civil penalties for violations of the law, as well she should.

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