A Southern California Catholic medical clinic has filed a countersuit against the state’s attorney general, accusing Rob Bonta of unlawfully prohibiting advocacy groups from informing women about a procedure called abortion pill reversal (APR).
The Culture of Life Family Services Inc. in Escondido filed the federal lawsuit on July 30 in the Southern District of California. The legal complaint comes in the wake of Bonta filing a lawsuit last year against abortion opponents and a chain of crisis pregnancy centers over APR, a procedure that the attorney general said has no scientific basis and poses risks to patients.
The Culture of Life lawsuit seeks an injunction to prohibit the Attorney General’s Office from enforcing statutes that would block APR treatments for pregnant women.
Anti-abortion advocates argue that APR can allow women who take abortion medications – a combination of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol – to reverse the effect of the medication and go on to experience normal pregnancies. Under APR, a woman who has second thoughts after taking the abortion pill is given a high dose of the hormone progesterone within three days of taking the initial pill in order to counter the effect of mifepristone.
“Attorney General Rob Bonta refuses to recognize a woman’s right to reverse an abortion in progress when she has changed her mind about the procedure,” Peter Breen, the executive vice president and head of litigation for the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, said in a prepared statement. “Abortion pill reversal gives these women a second chance to choose life, a choice that Bonta and the abortion industry would strip from her.”
The Thomas More Society is representing the plaintiff in the litigation.
The Culture of Life lawsuit argues that the attorney general is violating anti-abortion advocates’ First Amendment rights to promote APR, while Bonta’s litigation focuses on the medical procedure and the argument that there is little science to support it.
“The attorney general is committed to ensuring that Californians have access to accurate, comprehensive information on abortion and other reproductive healthcare services,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement emailed to the Southern California Record. “We look forward to continuing to fight against fraudulent and misleading claims about APR and to protecting reproductive freedom for all.”
Bonta’s 2023 lawsuit argues that no credible research has supported the safety of APR.
“The first and only credible study that tried to test the safety and efficacy of APR had to be halted after three of its 12 participants experienced severe bleeding and had to be rushed by ambulance to the emergency room, raising questions about the risks of stopping a medication abortion midway and of APR,” a news release from the Attorney General’s Office states.
Bonta’s office also indicated that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association have refused to endorse the procedure due to a lack of solid medical evidence.
The Culture of Life Lawsuit cites some small scientific studies by anti-abortion doctors. One analysis found that four out of six women who completed the APR medical study carried their pregnancies to term with no birth defects recorded.
The lawsuit alleges that the treatment is safe and effective and lawfully available around the world. In addition, crisis pregnancy centers have been the object of a politically motivated campaign by Bonta and his allies, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, the complaint says.