New York files lawsuit over abortion pill reversal claim
AG says anti-abortion group falsely advertised treatment
New York Attorney General Letitia James has sued Heartbeat International and 11 pregnancy centers, including sites in the Rochester area and Hudson Valley, for allegedly making fraudulent claims about abortion pill reversal treatments, court records show.
In a state Supreme Court lawsuit filed Monday, James asserted the anti-abortion group and its affiliated “crisis pregnancy centers” used false and misleading statements to advertise a medically unproven treatment they call abortion pill reversal.
Heartbeat and the pregnancy centers – which describe themselves as pro-life – advertise the abortion pill reversal “as a safe and effective treatment that they claim can ‘reverse’ ” medication abortions.
“In reality, abortion cannot be ‘reversed,’ and there is a glaring lack of scientific evidence to support (abortion pill reversal’s) safety and effectiveness,” James said in a statement, noting the only clinical trial to evaluate the treatment “had to be halted due to concerns about patient safety.”
The court battle comes after Heartbeat International and affiliates filed a lawsuit on April 30 in state Supreme Court seeking to block the state’s case against abortion pill reversal treatments and claims.
Heartbeat and its affiliates are represented by Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based nonprofit law firm involved in religious liberty cases nationally that are opposed to abortion.
“This is a political witch hunt against small nonprofits that have selflessly served New York’s pregnant women and their children for over 50 years,” Thomas More’s head of litigation Peter Breen said in a statement.
Heartbeat asserted James’ lawsuit violated its free speech and due process rights protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, as well as related protections under the state Constitution and civil rights law, court records show.
The court battle involves claims related to medication abortion, which usually involves taking two oral medications – first, mifepristone followed by misoprostol 24 to 48 hours later.
The abortion pill reversal treatment involves administering repeated doses of progesterone, a hormone bodies naturally produce during pregnancy, to a pregnant person who has taken mifepristone but has not yet taken misoprostol.
James asserted that use of progesterone is “not an accepted mainstream medical practice, and there is no credible scientific evidence proving that the treatment is safe or effective” in reversing abortions.
She added the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has also cautioned it’s not backed by science.
Heartbeat’s lawsuit asserted James’ office has “no business butting into the intimate medical decision of an expectant mother, in consultation with the medical professional of her choice, to carry her pregnancy to term and save her unborn baby from the disastrous effects of mifepristone while there is still time to undo the effects of that powerful chemical.”