Referencing the Pennsylvania Department of Health's annual report on abortion, Pennsylvania Family Council's Dan Bartkowiak notices that the state's increase in abortions in 2022 was accompanied by an increase in complications, like excessive bleeding and infection.
"What we've seen in the last five years is complications from abortions have tripled," he relays. "It's showing really the harm … not only with the amount of babies that are being lost to abortion; we see with this most recent report it's 95 abortions every day in Pennsylvania."
"Even more dangerous, these pills are being sent via mail to women across Pennsylvania via telemedicine – abortionists prescribing these pills without verifying the pregnancy, gestational age, or risk of ectopic pregnancy via ultrasound or other tests," Bartkowiak adds.
Chemical abortions can be fatal for a woman with an ectopic pregnancy, which occurs outside the womb, usually in the fallopian tube. In this situation, there is no chance of survival for the child, and the woman's life is endangered by the threat of a ruptured fallopian tube.
The recent case of one Orlando woman displays that danger. When she started feeling intense pain, she went to Planned Parenthood's East Orlando Health Center, where ultrasound revealed her ectopic pregnancy.
According to Operation Rescue, it is not known whether the woman was seeking an abortion, if she had already taken drugs to induce a chemical abortion, or if she had requested an ultrasound to explain her symptoms, "but it is certain that an ultrasound confirmed the presence of an ectopic pregnancy."
Suspecting a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, the clinic called for an ambulance. During that call, the worker explained that the patient felt faint and that she was bleeding heavily and in "a lot of pain."
Those are the same symptoms a woman experiences during a chemical abortion.
Since the only way to detect an ectopic pregnancy is by ultrasound, pro-life groups want the Food and Drug Administration to reinstate the protocol that requires a doctor visit before a woman can be prescribed the abortion pills, which cannot end an ectopic pregnancy.
If an unknowing woman tries, she may think her symptoms are a normal side effect of the abortion pill and delay seeking medical care, which has been fatal for too many woman already.
"The thing that should be making headline news is the playing politics here in Pennsylvania with regards to abortion," Bartkowiak notes. "We should be the state that does all they can to take politics out of it to really try to help women."
Instead, Governor Josh Shapiro (D) a few months ago stripped Real Alternatives, life-affirming pregnancy and parenting support services, of state funding. Those dollars were instead given to abortion giant Planned Parenthood.
In 2022, there were 34,838 abortions reported in Pennsylvania – the highest number of annual abortions in the last ten years. 19,000 of those were chemical abortions – the highest number ever on record.
