Articles On Information: Arizona Doctors Must Say That Abortions With Drugs May Be Reversed

Arizona Doctors Must Say That Abortions With Drugs May Be Reversed

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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" border="0" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Gov. Doug Ducey" data-mediaviewer-credit="Matt York/Associated Press" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/01/us/01ARIZONA/01ARIZONA-superJumbo.jpg" height="400" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/01/us/01ARIZONA/01ARIZONA-master180.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/01/us/01ARIZONA/01ARIZONA-master180.jpg" width="309" /></a>PHOENIX
 —  Once again, Arizona finds itself on the frontier of anti-abortion 
legislation: Late Monday, it became the first state to pass a law 
requiring doctors who perform drug-induced abortions to tell women that 
the procedure may be reversible, an assertion that most doctors say is 
wrong.</div>
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The
 provision is part of a broader law signed by Gov. Doug Ducey, a 
Republican, meant to prevent plans offered in Arizona through the 
federal health care exchange from providing coverage for most abortions.</div>
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Opponents
 of abortion see the provision — in which doctors must explain to women 
having early-stage pill-induced abortions “that it may be possible to 
reverse the effects of a medical abortion” — as opening up a new avenue 
in anti-abortion legislation nationwide.</div>
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Most
 doctors say the science behind the legislation is unproven or 
erroneous. It is based largely on the research of Dr. George Delgado, 
who said he was able to save the pregnancies of a number of women after 
they had started, but not completed, the two-step process involved in 
such an abortion.</div>
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As is usually the case in abortion politics, the talk on both sides is forceful.</div>
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“It’s
 tragic when a woman makes a decision to have an abortion without 
knowing all the facts,” said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for 
Arizona Policy, a conservative organization that was a leading supporter
 of the legislation. “We know children have been born. We know women 
have been spared the heartache of abortion. There’s no downside to this.
 Where’s the harm in informing a woman that it could be reversible?”</div>
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On the other side, Jody Liggett, the public policy director of <a class="meta-org" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" title="More articles about Planned Parenthood Federation of America">Planned Parenthood</a>
 Arizona, called the new law “dangerous and quite simply outrageous.” 
She said: “Arizona women trust their physicians. Extreme policy makers 
are preying on this trust in order to further bad medicine, all in the 
name of politics, and not science.”</div>
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In
 a drug-induced abortion, the woman first takes mifepristone, a drug 
designed to end a pregnancy of less than seven weeks, followed about two
 days later by the drug misoprostol. Dr. Delgado, a family physician and
 medical director of Culture of Life Family Services in San Diego, says 
that by giving a woman progesterone, a hormone, before she takes the 
second drug, the abortion can be reversed.</div>
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Dr.
 Delgado started a website explaining the method because, he said, women
 were not being told by their abortion providers that it was an option, 
or, if they were informed, they were told that a reversed abortion could
 lead to birth defects. He published an article in the December 2012 
issue of Annals of Pharmacotherapy in which he said that four out of the
 six women in his study who took progesterone after taking mifepristone 
were able to carry their pregnancies to term. He said he has since 
documented 87 cases where a woman gave birth to a healthy child and 75 
where women were still pregnant after being given the progesterone.</div>
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But Dr. Delgado’s findings have faced serious scrutiny from the medical community.</div>
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“It
 has no data behind it, absolutely no science to show that this is an 
effective method,” said Dr. Ilana Addis, the chairwoman of the Arizona 
section of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The
 organization said that in 30 percent to 50 percent of cases in which a 
woman takes only mifepristone, the pregnancy will continue, meaning the 
progesterone could have had little effect.</div>
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“There’s no research,” she said. “It’s a series of case reports.”</div>
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Republican
 legislators in Arizona have a history of pursuing laws intended to make
 it harder for women to get an abortion or to encourage them to change 
their minds. The state requires a woman to meet with a doctor at least 
24 hours before the procedure and have an ultrasound. In 2012, the 
governor at the time, Jan Brewer, signed legislation that barred most 
abortions after 20 weeks, but it was later struck down in the courts. </div>
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In
 2006, Ms. Brewer’s predecessor, Janet Napolitano, vetoed legislation 
that would have required abortion providers to tell a woman having an 
abortion after 20 weeks that the fetus would feel pain. </div>
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On
 Tuesday, Mr. Ducey, who took office this year, released a statement 
saying the law “ensures that women have as much information as possible 
when making an important medical decision.”</div>
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But
 critics have lambasted the law as inserting questionable information in
 an already distressing time for a woman, inviting litigation and 
potentially embarrassing Arizona.  </div>
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“This
 is not who the people of Arizona are — most people here are rational, 
reasonable people, even if they feel differently on reproductive health 
than I do,” said Representative Victoria Steele, a Democrat from Tucson.
 “How can you stomach allowing doctors — no, forcing doctors — to tell 
their patients that a medicated abortion can be reversed?”</div>
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“This is quack medicine,” she added, “yet we put it into law and the governor signed it.”</div>
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