Like Big Tobacco and smoking, research on women’s safety from abortion pill pushers cannot be trusted

The Life Institute has said that the media is failing to question the obvious biases and flaws in a new study, which was funded and researched by abortion campaigners and abortionists, and which claims that using abortion pills without medical supervision is safe and effective.

Spokeswoman Niamh Uí Bhriain said that it was entirely ludicrous to treat research funded by the abortion industry as unbiased, reliable or trustworthy.   “This is like expecting honesty and transparency from Big Tobacco on the effects of smoking. This study http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2011 was funded by a major abortion supporter, the Society of Family Planning, and the research data was provided by the actual abortion pill providers. Three of the four authors of the study work with Women on Web who send illegal abortion pills to desperate women rather than helping them to have their babies.”     “It is ludicrous to expect abortion pill pushers to be in any way objective as to the safety or otherwise of the drugs that they are actually providing, since they are actively pushing abortion as a solution instead of providing support and compassion for women with an unexpected pregnancy,” she said. 

Ms Uí Bhriain said that four key flaws in the research were being ignored:   

1. The research was seriously limited by the fact that the women self-reported with respect to the outcome and complications of abortion. Neither did the research take account of long-term adverse mental health effects of abortion. 
2. Another important limitation was that the researchers did not find out  whether the treatment women received for potential adverse events was appropriate and necessary 
3. The research was carried out and funded by the abortion industry and its supporters. 
4. The life of the preborn child, and the human rights of the baby, were not given any consideration in this research.

Ms Uí Bhriain also said that most media reports on the study did not ask hard questions of the study, or express concern for the 10% of women who had to seek medical attention after taking the abortion pills.

“When abortion campaigners were seeking to distribute pills illegally in Ireland, leading medical experts warned https://www.rte.ie/news/player/2015/1019/20865524-pro-choice-activists-plan-abortion-pill-bus/ that they were putting the lives of women who took these pills outside of a unsupervised medical setting at risk. But when the media unquestioningly reports on abortion propaganda we can see that women’s lives are secondary to their objective of promoting abortion,” she said.