Rebekah Hagan was desperate to get an abortion.
At 18 years old, Rebekah was pregnant with her second child. She was recently separated from her children’s father—who was physically and verbally abusive—and living with her parents. She didn’t know what else to do.
Rebekah had the first several weeks of pregnancy to get a chemical abortion, but the time was slipping away from her. Every time she tried to obtain RU-486—an abortion-inducing drug—something stood in her way.
And she was starting to panic.
At Rebekah’s first appointment, the abortion clinic would not administer abortion-inducing drugs after 2:00pm on a Friday. The next week, a family emergency conflicted with her scheduled appointment. She then made an appointment at a local Planned Parenthood, where a staff member walked her through all the necessary paperwork. But when a nurse tried to get a sample of Rebekah’s blood—which was required in order to proceed—she couldn’t find a vein.
Rebekah’s window to get a chemical abortion was closing. But, a week later, she finally got what she wanted… or what she thought she wanted. She took the first pill at Planned Parenthood and was given the second dose to take the next day at home.
As soon as Rebekah got back to her car, she had a realization. The date was March 13. The next day was her oldest son’s birthday. And if she went through with the abortion, March 14 would forever be marked as the day she both gave birth to her oldest son and took the life of her second child.
She knew immediately that she had made a mistake.
Right there in her car, Rebekah began researching how to reverse the effects of RU-486. Eventually, she stumbled on a website for a pregnancy care center in San Diego, eight hours away from where she was in Sacramento, and they connected her with a doctor who agreed to help her with what is called “abortion pill reversal.”
Abortion pill reversal is the process of administering the hormone progesterone to a woman that has taken RU-486 in an attempt to stop the abortive process. Progesterone is an FDA-approved drug that has been used for decades to prevent miscarriage. And so far, statistics show that abortion pill reversal has helped save more than 2,000 lives—and counting.
Because Rebekah did not show up to her follow-up appointment with Planned Parenthood, the staff contacted her. And when they heard that she was trying to reverse the effects of the abortion pill, they told her that her baby could have severe abnormalities.
They were wrong.
Later that year, Rebekah gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy.
Keeping Women in the Dark
Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood is not the only organization trying to keep the truth about abortion-pill reversal away from women.
The American Medical Association is currently challenging a North Dakota informed-consent law that ensures women who are considering abortion know two things:
- Abortion ends the life of a “separate, unique, living human being”; and
- The chemical abortion process may be reversible if treated quickly.
The AMA claims that requiring doctors to inform women of all their options surrounding an abortion violates the free speech rights of medical professionals.
But women have the right to be fully informed about their medical procedures. They should receive complete disclosure of the process, the risks, and what’s at stake. That’s true of other medical procedures. Why should it be any different with an abortion?
That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom has stepped in to defend this law on behalf of our client, Heartbeat International.
Women like Rebekah don’t deserve to be kept in the dark or lied to when they seek a chemical abortion.
By denying these women the truth, they are being denied real choice in the process.
Sarah Kramer is the Digital Content Specialist at the Alliance Defending Freedom
