The pro-life journal that published a study claiming that “abortion reversal” is possible has retracted the paper. The study claimed that high doses of the hormone progesterone could prevent abortion from recurring in women who use an abortion pill. The study was riddled with methodological and other errors. About 25% of fetuses survive at least the first dose of an abortion pill, even without progesterone.
Abortion Reversal: The Troubling History of the Idea
Greg Delgado, an anti-choice physician who runs a crisis pregnancy center, originally developed the idea of abortion reversal. He reasoned that, since progesterone helps sustain an early pregnancy, it might also reverse abortion. But his claims remained anecdotal until he published his paper, which followed hundreds of women, this year. The paper claimed to successfully reverse abortion in nearly half of its test subjects. This would mean that progesterone could double the number of women in whom the abortion pill does not work.
Reversing the Abortion Reversal Paper
Delgado is affiliated with the University of San Diego, which recently initiated an investigation into the paper’s claims. Pending that investigation, and in the wake of “technical concerns” with the paper, Issues in Law and Medicine has retracted the paper pending a correction. Both the journal and the hospital have a history of anti-choice activism, so there’s no credible claim here that politics led to the paper’s retraction.
The primary concern with the paper is that its authors failed to seek appropriate approval from an institutional review board. The university only approved analyzing old data, not collecting new data. This means that the data collection methods themselves may be suspect. When data collection or analysis is a problem, or when a paper ignores ethical norms, it is far outside the bounds of science.
It’s unclear if the paper might eventually be reissued. Until that happens, however, anti-choicers can no longer point to any peer-reviewed research suggesting abortion can be reversed.
How Faulty Science Paves the Way for Harmful Legislation
The scientifically dubious claims of the study have already received legislative backing. Abortion clinics in Arizona, Arkansas, and a handful of other states are now required to tell women it is possible to “reverse” the abortion pill—a claim that now has no scientific basis.
Anti-choicers have long used fake or misleading science to skew legislation in their favor. A study published this year found that faulty scientific ideas, especially about abortion regret, are often used to bolster anti-choice legislation. A 2016 study found that media coverage of abortion heavily relies on men lying about abortion.
So it’s unlikely that the retraction of yet another faulty anti-choice study will have any political consequences. Legislation built on the notion of abortion reversal will remain intact. Anti-choice legislation not about truth, or women’s safety. It’s about controlling women’s bodies, even if doing so requires lying.