We should recognize ideological conflicts of interest in clinical research just as we recognize financial conflicts of interest in clinical research. It doesn't negate the studies, but tells us about potential biases and requires us to look more closely at the methodology and reporting.
Cobalt and other proabortion organizations are currently circulating petitions to have Initiative 89 appear on Colorado 2024 ballot. They have the money to pay circulators to get the necessary signatures so there is little doubt it will be on the ballot in November. The ballot initiative is deceptively drafted to make it appear that the primary issue is correcting an “unintended consequence” of Amendment 3. Colorado constitutional Amendment 3 narrowly passed in 1984. It prohibited the use of state public funds for induced abortions unless the life of the mother was in jeopardy. Initiative 89 backers are highlighting the lack of funding for state employees for abortions in cases of rape, incest, issues that “gravely endangers the patient’s health” or when there is a “fatal fetal condition”. They also point out the lack of an exception for state Medicaid funding for issues that “gravely endangers a patient’s health” or for a “fatal fetal condition”. What are they not saying? There already is an exception for the pregnant woman’s life which would encompass anything that “gravely endangers the patient’s health”. They are trying to blur the line between an exception for a condition that jeopardizes a woman’s life and any complication that requires treatment during pregnancy but does not threaten her life. Similarly, Medicaid already offers reimbursement for abortions related to rape or to save the mother’s life. It does not have an exception for the nebulously defined “health” of the mother, which can be treated in the normal course of obstetric practice, or for fetal conditions. A “fatal fetal condition” is a pejorative phrase with little resemblance to reality. For instance, Trisomy 18 is often referred to in this manner. The problem arises because the condition may be as much as 90% survivable if treated with standard interventions (employed on infants without Trisomy 18 diagnoses). It doesn’t mean that there aren’t life threatening fetal conditions or that some infants will have significant disabilities but describing these fetuses as “fatal” is a way to dehumanize them and justify the abortion decision. If they were really motivated to remove the barriers to the < 4% of abortions that occur for reasons of rape, incest, life of the mother, and life-limiting fetal conditions, why doesn’t Initiative 89 simply ask Coloradans add these exceptions to Amendment 3s language? The answer is clear. They want to evoke an emotional response which will override Coloradans’ qualms about unrestricted abortion. Their arguments gloss over the main purpose of Initiative 89 – to make abortion access a constitutional right without any gestational limits for any reason and to use public funding to subsidize it. They would like the public to be unaware of the fact that hundreds of healthy viable (>21 weeks) fetuses gestating in healthy women are currently aborted in Colorado. And that at least one late term abortionist (Warren Hern) has publicly acknowledged that he does abortions for absolutely any reason – including for sex selection. If the public had an inkling of the magnitude of the slaughter of prenatal humans purely for social and economic reasons, they would be appalled. There are so many other legislative initiatives that could be undertaken to provide support for pregnant women and their families so that they don’t feel compelled to consider abortion. Why don’t we focus our efforts on these life-affirming alternatives to the violence of abortion? DFLCO will be participating with Pro-Life Colorado, the state-wide umbrella organization uniting prolife groups, to defeat Initiative 89. DFLCO members should begin talking to their prochoice friends and writing letters to the editor of local media shedding light on the deceptive nature of Initiative 89 and the Trojan horse it represents for constitutionally protected unrestricted abortion. If your contacts don’t recoil at the reality that hundreds of healthy viable fetuses are being aborted for reasons as abhorrent as sex selection, then Colorado is in worse shape than any of us recognize. Initiative 89 should have no place in Colorado.
Cobalt and other proabortion organizations are currently circulating petitions to have Initiative 89 appear on Colorado 2024 ballot. They have the money to pay circulators to get the necessary signatures so there is little doubt it will be on the ballot in November. The ballot initiative is deceptively drafted to make it appear that the primary issue is correcting an “unintended consequence” of Amendment 3. Colorado constitutional Amendment 3 narrowly passed in 1984. It prohibited the use of state public funds for induced abortions unless the life of the mother was in jeopardy. Initiative 89 backers are highlighting the lack of funding for state employees for abortions in cases of rape, incest, issues that “gravely endangers the patient’s health” or when there is a “fatal fetal condition”. They also point out the lack of an exception for state Medicaid funding for issues that “gravely endangers a patient’s health” or for a “fatal fetal condition”. What are they not saying? There already is an exception for the pregnant woman’s life which would encompass anything that “gravely endangers the patient’s health”. They are trying to blur the line between an exception for a condition that jeopardizes a woman’s life and any complication that requires treatment during pregnancy but does not threaten her life. Similarly, Medicaid already offers reimbursement for abortions related to rape or to save the mother’s life. It does not have an exception for the nebulously defined “health” of the mother, which can be treated in the normal course of obstetric practice, or for fetal conditions. A “fatal fetal condition” is a pejorative phrase with little resemblance to reality. For instance, Trisomy 18 is often referred to in this manner. The problem arises because the condition may be as much as 90% survivable if treated with standard interventions (employed on infants without Trisomy 18 diagnoses). It doesn’t mean that there aren’t life threatening fetal conditions or that some infants will have significant disabilities but describing these fetuses as “fatal” is a way to dehumanize them and justify the abortion decision. If they were really motivated to remove the barriers to the < 4% of abortions that occur for reasons of rape, incest, life of the mother, and life-limiting fetal conditions, why doesn’t Initiative 89 simply ask Coloradans add these exceptions to Amendment 3s language? The answer is clear. They want to evoke an emotional response which will override Coloradans’ qualms about unrestricted abortion. Their arguments gloss over the main purpose of Initiative 89 – to make abortion access a constitutional right without any gestational limits for any reason and to use public funding to subsidize it. They would like the public to be unaware of the fact that hundreds of healthy viable (>21 weeks) fetuses gestating in healthy women are currently aborted in Colorado. And that at least one late term abortionist (Warren Hern) has publicly acknowledged that he does abortions for absolutely any reason – including for sex selection. If the public had an inkling of the magnitude of the slaughter of prenatal humans purely for social and economic reasons, they would be appalled. There are so many other legislative initiatives that could be undertaken to provide support for pregnant women and their families so that they don’t feel compelled to consider abortion. Why don’t we focus our efforts on these life-affirming alternatives to the violence of abortion? DFLCO will be participating with Pro-Life Colorado, the state-wide umbrella organization uniting prolife groups, to defeat Initiative 89. DFLCO members should begin talking to their prochoice friends and writing letters to the editor of local media shedding light on the deceptive nature of Initiative 89 and the Trojan horse it represents for constitutionally protected unrestricted abortion. If your contacts don’t recoil at the reality that hundreds of healthy viable fetuses are being aborted for reasons as abhorrent as sex selection, then Colorado is in worse shape than any of us recognize. Initiative 89 should have no place in Colorado.
The pregnancy of Kate Cox, the Dallas-area women who sought an abortion in Texas because her fetus was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, raises numerous emotionally charged issues. She is 31 years old and has had two previous C-section deliveries and two healthy children. Texas has enacted abortion restrictions which prompted her to sue the state to procure an abortion after 20 weeks gestation. This is a tragedy for Ms. Cox and her family. it is incredibly painful when a family first learns that their dreams for a healthy child are dashed. However, it doesn’t mean that their pain is diminished by access to abortion. And it doesn’t mean that their lives won’t be enriched by their child -even if their child’s life is abbreviated. It is worth reviewing some of the more prominent media distortions pertaining to the Cox pregnancy/baby that prejudice the public’s response to this tragedy: 1) Trisomy 18 has a poor prognosis. It is true that there is a high probability for a fetus with Trisomy 18 to be stillborn. However, the prognosis is not as bad as portrayed in the media. According to a recent systematic review, a baby born with Trisomy 18 in 2020 has a 13% 10-year survival rate. 2) A Trisomy 18 baby may face challenges, but their lives can be a source of great strength and inspiration for a family. Senator Risk Santorum’s baby, Bella , is a case in point. 3) For those families who choose comfort care (perinatal palliative care and/or perinatal hospice ) for their baby with Trisomy 18, the experience is described by many families as deeply moving and life-affirming. These families don’t try to extinguish the memory of their child, but instead, celebrate their short life. A team of professionals walks with the family during the pregnancy, at birth, and post-partum. They provide support to the mother and baby and ensure that when the baby dies it is without discomfort and surrounded by loving family. This can contribute tremendously to healing for the grieving family. The healing is impeded for those families that choose abortion since they will never forget their complicity in their child’s violent death. 4) At 21 weeks, the D&E procedure that was recommended to the Cox family is associated with substantial risk to the mother. This is omitted from mainstream media stories. The risk of dying from an abortion increases by 38% for each week of gestation after 8 weeks. Even without factoring in her increased risk for uterine rupture by virtue of her previous C-sections, the risk for an induced abortion is substantially greater than the risk of natural childbirth based on evidence from national record linkage studies. If the Cox baby needs a C-section rather than vaginal delivery, the risks are higher, but C-section is not an inevitability. If Ms. Cox had two previous low-transverse cesarean deliveries, she would be a candidate for a trial of labor after C-section (TOLAC). 5) The recommended D&E abortion procedure is often performed without administering a feticide- a chemical/drug that kills the fetus prior to the surgical abortion. One review reported that only 52% of abortion providers inject a feticide before proceeding with a second trimester D&E abortion. The D&E entails the systematic dismemberment of the living fetus which is pain capable by the gestational age of the Cox baby. Imagine for a moment the excruciating suffering elicited in the living fetus as its limbs are literally torn off. Some abortion advocates mistakenly view this as the “compassionate” choice. 6) Even in those cases where an abortionist chooses to administer a feticide prior to the procedure, the fetus will endure incredible suffering. The most common feticide, digoxin, takes up to 4 hours to kill the fetus if it is injected directly into the fetus and up to 24 hours if it is injected into the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus. Digoxin overdose is associated with intense nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and delirium before it slows the heart and induces death. This can aptly be described as fetal torture. 7) The media suggests that Kate Cox’s life is in jeopardy if she continues the pregnancy. However, there is nothing in the lawsuit that corroborates this assertion. Ms. Cox visited the Emergency Department for cramps and diarrhea, but this is not a concerning symptom for her health or life. During a second Emergency Department visit she was reported to have some unidentified fluid from her vagina – suggesting the possibility of leaking amniotic fluid. This would be a more significant concern, but the Emergency Department commonly visualizes the cervix to make this diagnosis. They can also perform ultrasounds and several forms of tests on the vaginal fluid to establish this diagnosis (including pH-based tests, a fern test, and placenta alpha-1 globulin protein). The fact that none of this was mentioned in the lawsuit leads one to believe that Ms. Cox was not manifesting Premature Rupture of Membranes (PROM) and leaking amniotic fluid. The lawsuit mentions an elevated prenatal blood sugar, but gestational diabetes can be managed with a very low risk of morbidity/mortality. Translation - there was nothing in the lawsuit suggesting her life was at risk. 8) The media uncritically reports that future fertility is at risk if she continues her pregnancy. In the lawsuit, Ms. Cox indicates that she would like to have another child. It is true that if she had a C-section to deliver her child with Trisomy 18, there would be increased risk from a 4th C-section with a future child. The risk of uterine dehiscence (which means the partial opening of the uterus at the previous C-section scar) goes from 6.6% with her third C-section to 10.3% with her fourth C-section. This is a concern, but the absolute risk remains low. Furthermore, she is at increased risk with a future child regardless of her abortion decision by virtue of her C-section history. As indicated previously, it is not certain that a repeat C-section would be required and if she has a vaginal delivery of her Trisomy 18 child, there is little additional risk incurred with her future pregnancy. 9) Surgical abortions in general, and late abortions in particular, are associated with premature birth in subsequent pregnancies. Induced abortions are associated with cervical damage . This means that if Kate Cox obtains a late abortion, she may be putting her own and her future baby’s life at risk. Preterm delivery is associated with long term mortality for the mother and is the biggest driver of infant mortality for the child. 10) If any of the facts reviewed above miss some of the salient clinical features omitted from the lawsuit or if Kate Cox’s condition deteriorates, the Texas Supreme Court has made it clear that abortion is an option if her bodily functions or life are at risk. Furthermore, the court explicitly stated that her life does not need to be in “imminent” danger to pursue abortion in those circumstances. Her attending physicians simply need to make that determination based on reasonable medical judgement and the Texas Supreme court says it does not need to be reviewed by the judiciary. The Cox family have our sympathy and we all wish them well. However, their decision should be based on all the facts and not the selective narrative of abortion providers. It is unfortunate that families with life-threatening fetal anomalies are often given no hope and coerced into pursuing an abortion that they later regret.
There are some things I have a hard time understanding. Why do people who profess a Christian worldview support a presidential candidate who is crude, cruel, vindictive, misogynistic, narcissistic, and does not pretend to know, much less follow, basic Christian moral teachings? When the prenatal human rights movement becomes associated with such figures, we lose moral credibility and ultimately, electoral power. And why do people who are otherwise loving and compassionate fail to demonstrate any love or compassion for the preborn human being before they are killed in elective abortions? Why is it either the mother or the preborn baby and not both? Why do people go out of the way to knock down perceived barriers to abortion access, but seem disinterested in eliminating the socioeconomic barriers to giving birth and parenting? Why do people feel the only way to achieve equity between the sexes is to deny the biological realities of the sexes? Why do we primarily deal with the asymmetric burdens of human reproduction by promoting abortion? Why can’t we honor a woman’s different role by making social and economic accommodations for women so that their education and careers are prioritized during their reproductive years? Why is it that many of the same people who characterize themselves as “anti-racist” fail to recognize the systemic issues and underlying racism that result in many more preborn babies of color being aborted than White preborn babies? I don’t profess to have all the answers. But what I do know is why I am prolife. I am a physician. In medical school, I studied embryology and marveled at the remarkable and seamless journey from zygote to human birth. My textbook unequivocally stated that “development begins at fertilization, when a sperm fuses with an ovum to form a zygote; this cell is the beginning of a new human being”. Any attempt to distinguish a human being from a human person is philosophically and scientifically arbitrary. As part of my educational training at medical school, I had the terrifying experience of viewing a recently aborted second trimester baby at the bottom of a surgical bucket. You can’t unsee that. As a medical student, I witnessed an OB/GYN attending physician flaunt her wealth by driving a Rolls Royce – only to learn her wealth was predicated on a very lucrative abortion clinic practice. I know that during the most common second trimester abortion procedure, an abortionist literally dismembers the fetus without the benefit of any anesthesia. I know that during abortions after fetal viability (22 weeks), the fetus is commonly injected with a drug, digoxin, which I have witnessed causing nausea, retching, abdominal pain, and delirium at toxic levels in my adult patients. It can take up to 4 hours to kill a fetus if the drug is injected directly into the body and up to 24 hours if it is injected into the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus. That is up to 24 hours of fetal torture/anguish. Because I am a physician, I understand that there is no connection between abortion restrictions and the medical management of a miscarriage. Because I am a physician, I know that abortion restrictions never prevent a physician from responding to a medical emergency in a pregnant patient. I know that for rare medical complications during pregnancy, a physician must deliver a baby prematurely – even if delivering the baby will foreseeably result in the death of the baby. Because I am a physician, I know that the scare tactics employed by abortion advocates are just that – scare tactics. If a woman must go to another state for urgent/emergent complications of her pregnancy, it is because of malpractice, not because of abortion restrictions. I have had men and women yell and swear at me because of my prolife position who ultimately break down in tears, and admit they were angry because they aborted their child and knew it was wrong. I have had an elderly woman come up to me outside an abortion clinic where I was offering help to abortion vulnerable women and thank me as she cried and said that if I had been there 50 years ago, she many have not made the worst decision of her life and had an abortion. I have had a woman stop her car in the middle of the street outside an abortion clinic and smile from ear to ear, explaining that because I was there two years ago, her little boy was now two years old. I know that abortion hurts women and men alike. I know that many women feel coerced by their financial situation or partners, but there is help and we won't let them stand alone. I know that sanctioning violence in the wound leads to increasing violence in our culture. I know that when we start dividing human beings into those that are worthy of rights/protections and those that are unworthy of rights/protections we undermine our own human dignity/value. So why is a majority of the electorate voting against abortion restrictions? It is true that if the mainstream media would cover the issue objectively, more could discern the truth about the reality of abortion. I also believe that if more could see what I see, they would vote to protect innocent human life in the womb. And I know that I will fight to protect the dignity and value of every human being until the day I take my last breath. I hope more of you join me. Thomas J. Perille MD
Krista Kafer nailed it. A small faction of abortion rights extremists strong-armed the Democratic caucus and pushed through SB23-190 which punitively targeted Pregnancy Resource Centers which are commonly affiliated with religious organizations. Not only did they blatantly challenge the first amendment rights of these centers, but they also didn’t hide their animus in hours of testimony at the state capitol. The bill also sought to ban the use of progesterone to mitigate the abortifacient effects of mifepristone – the first pill in the two-drug medication abortion regimen. Eliminating this option has nothing to do with improving abortion access but rather is all about denying a woman’s agency and removing her choices. Opposition to abortion pill reversal was never about the science since there is low-level, but multifaceted and compelling evidence to support the practice. Instead, their true motivations were revealed in testimony from ACOG to the Medical Board – they didn’t want to acknowledge that women change their minds about abortion since it would contradict their preferred narrative and lead to “abortion stigma”. They cared little about the desperate woman in their exam room who believed she made a tragic mistake and wanted to save her baby. I hope my fellow Democrats take the judge’s decision as a wake-up call. It is past time to look beyond a narrow proabortion focus and support all attempts to serve women who face a challenging pregnancy. Thomas J. Perille MD President, Democrats for Life of Colorado
Excerpts from Democrats for Life of Colorado's President, Thomas Perille MD, to the Colorado Medical, Nursing and Pharmacy Boards which walks through the evidence in support of abortion pill reversal: Members of the Colorado Medical Board, Board of Nursing and Board of Pharmacy, With the signature of SB23-190 into law by Governor Polis, you have been asked to evaluate a specific medical intervention to determine if it is a “generally accepted standard of practice”. As someone who has reviewed several cases for the Medical Board to determine if a provider deviated from accepted community standards, I would like to provide my perspective based on a careful review of the evidence. So called “abortion pill reversal” (APR) protocols were developed in response to the rare situation in which a woman pursuing a medication abortion regrets her choice after taking the first pill, mifepristone, but before taking the second drug, misoprostol, in the two-drug regimen. The purpose of APR is to mitigate the abortifacient effects of mifepristone and increase the odds of a continuing pregnancy. It should be no surprise that some women harbor significant ambivalence about their abortion decision. The Turnaway Study (page 126) reported that within one week of being denied an abortion, 35% of women no longer wished to have an abortion. In 2022, 31 Colorado women (approximately 0.4% of medication abortion patients) sought to pursue APR through the most prominent organization dedicated to APR – Heartbeat International . As a matter of principle, clinicians routinely honor a patient’s right to withdraw consent from any medical or surgical intervention. Therefore, addressing the needs of women who change their mind about their medication abortion should not be controversial. Mifepristone was developed in the 1980s as a progesterone antagonist. It is one drug in a whole class of Selective Progesterone Receptor Modulators (SPRMs). The drug binds progesterone receptors twice as avidly as progesterone. In the early 1990s it was studied primarily as a means to terminate early pregnancy . APR is based on the premise that mifepristone competition for the progesterone receptors is a dynamic process. By flooding the receptors with natural progesterone, one could theoretically overcome the binding of mifepristone to progesterone receptors and reduce its abortifacient effects. Some abortion researchers have questioned the potential for high dose progesterone to significantly impact mifepristone’s binding to progesterone receptors. They cite the observation that women treated with mifepristone for abortion have high progesterone levels and therefore it would seem implausible that more progesterone would make any difference. They also point to a study of the very potent progestin contraceptive implant, etonogestrel. When it was administered immediately after the ingestion of mifepristone, it did not reduce the percentage of successful medication abortions. There are animal and human data to counter these arguments. Early in the research on mifepristone it was recognized that its binding to the progesterone receptor could be reduced by increasing progesterone levels. In a study in pregnant rats, those that received mifepristone only had 33% of pups survive. In contrast, those that were given progesterone with mifepristone, 100% of pups survived. A second study in rats demonstrated a clear progesterone mediated reversal of mifepristone induced pregnancy termination in a rat model. As early as 1991, a medical review of mifepristone use in medication abortions recognized that the mifepristone binding to the progesterone receptor could be reversed by adding progesterone. Collectively, these provide proof of principle for APR. The fact that progestin can interfere with the action of a SPRM in humans is a documented concern outside of mifepristone use for medication abortion. The FDA recommends that progesterone containing hormonal contraceptives not be administered within 5 days of taking the SPRM, ulipristal, so as not to reduce its effectiveness as a form of emergency contraception. Compelling evidence that a progestin can specifically interfere with a mifepristone (and misoprostol) in a medication abortion was found during a large, randomized, multinational study of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate use as a post-abortive contraceptive. In this study, the administration of medroxyprogesterone in conjunction with the ingestion of mifepristone (Quickstart) was associated with a 400% increase in the odds of a continuing pregnancy compared to delaying the administration of medroxyprogesterone after a mifepristone/misoprostol abortion (Afterstart). While the absolute difference was small (0.9% to 3.6%), the results were statistically significant. Some researchers speculated that depot medroxyprogesterone acetate differs from other progestins, such as etonogestrel, because of its potency and rapid achievement of peak levels. The first known use of high dose progesterone to mitigate the effects of mifepristone during the course of a medication abortion was in 2006 by Dr. Matthew Harrison. A desperate woman who immediately regretted her medication abortion decision sought his help. Based on the known mechanism of action and the record of safety using progesterone to treat miscarriages, he initiated a course of high dose parenteral progesterone. This resulted in the delivery of a healthy baby girl. I would argue that even this early adoption of the APR concept met the criteria for a “generally accepted standard of practice” as defined by the Colorado Medical Board. The strategy was plausible based on the known mechanism of action of mifepristone – competitive inhibition of the progesterone receptor. Animal research supported the approach. The intervention was deemed safe in analogous OB indications (miscarriage prevention) at the time. And most importantly, the potential benefit - a life saved- justified an unproven intervention. The only alternative course of action was expectant management which would be anticipated to result in only a 20-40% chance of embryonic survival based on WHO data from 1997. In 2012, the first case series utilizing progesterone to block the abortifacient effects of mifepristone was published. Four of six (66%) women who were administered parenteral progesterone after taking mifepristone carried their pregnancies to term. A second small case series in 2017 also demonstrated a 66% continuing pregnancy rate after administration of progesterone following mifepristone. This compares to a historical rate of >>risk). The only alternative – expectant management – is associated with a much poorer outcomes and potentially worse safety - twice the embryo/fetus mortality and a possible greater risk of hemorrhage for the woman. Thank you for your consideration. Thomas J. Perille MD FACP FHM President, Democrats for Life of Colorado
Merrily’s Choice is a compelling story published in the Denver Post on Sunday, January 5 (Under the Colorado End-of-Life Options Act, Merrily got to choose the day she'd die (denverpost.com)) highlighting the perceived benefits of physician assisted suicide (PAS), commonly referred to by the euphemism, medical aid-in-dying (MAID). Merrily clearly had a loving family. It is easy to empathize with her family who thought that PAS was a good choice. However, the positive picture of PAS portrayed by Merrily’s granddaughter is both incomplete and misleading. It can have unintended consequences for those hearing her story.
Late abortions (after 22 weeks gestational age) are extreme by any national and international comparison. Just seven of the 50 States in the US permit abortion after 25 weeks. Most prohibit abortion at 22 weeks or less. Internationally, only five of the 198 countries, independent states, and semi-autonomous regions with populations exceeding 1 million permit elective abortion after 24 weeks. Three of the five nations that permit late abortion are notorious human rights abusers: China, North Korea, and Vietnam. Colorado should not aspire to join the ranks of the few states and countries that dehumanize the developing fetus and permit the killing of these most vulnerable human beings. Colorado should also not jeopardize the health of Colorado women by allowing the unregulated out-patient practice of late abortion which is known to pose serious risks to the health and life of the woman. Vote Yes on Proposition 115 to save lives.
