When Taking the RU-486 Pill Failed, She Came to Us

Weeks ago, I walked into our crisis pregnancy center and witnessed a miracle. I have been volunteering as a counselor for over seven years now and never before have I seen this. I was honored to see God’s handiwork up close—watching the face and eyes of the woman who received a redemptive gift.

If you aren’t familiar with the abortion pill RU-486, I would like to introduce you before going any further. RU-486 is not a contraceptive. RU-486 kills an unborn baby (typically within five to seven weeks of conception) whose heart has already begun to beat.

RU-486 is an artificial steroid that interferes with the action of progesterone, a hormone crucial to the early progress of pregnancy. Progesterone stimulates the increased development of the uterine lining, which nourishes the developing child. It also suppresses normal uterine contractions, which could dislodge the child implanted and growing on the wall of the mother’s womb.

This abortion-inducing procedure RU-486 fills the chemical receptor sites normally reserved for progesterone and blocks the progesterone signal. Failing to receive that signal, a woman’s body shuts down the preparation of the uterus and initiates the menstrual process.

The pre-born child, deprived of necessary nutrients, starves to death.

The baby’s heart—which has already begun to beat at least since 4 weeks old—stops beating. This is the only purpose for which the sponsor of RU-486 ever sought U.S. government approval: the stopping of a human heart. The baby then detaches and is swept out of the body along with the decayed uterine lining.

But that’s not all. A chemical abortion via RU-486 involves a second drug, misoprostol. By itself, RU-486 is able to induce an abortion only between 64 percent and 85 percent of the time—a percentage abortifacient researchers consider inadequate for general clinical use.

So two days after taking RU-486, a woman takes a prostaglandin, usually misoprostol, to induce powerful uterine contractions to expel the baby’s shrunken corpse. What does this part of the two-part pill abortion mean to the woman’s body? You will have severely heavy bleeding, nausea, vomiting and painful uterine contractions before and after the baby exits the body.

TIME magazine describes this as “A painful, messy and protracted” process. In its trial testing, 2 percent of women hemorrhaged and more than 1 in 100 required hospitalization. And this was when RU-486 was under constant trial supervision. Complications greatly increase when the woman is given the pills at abortion centers and sent home with instructions—no supervision and no follow-up.

Can they really call this health care? (Let it be noted: Surgical abortions, though completely different in procedure, are just as dangerous to undergo.)

Having explained RU-486 and its process, let’s move on to that incredible evening at the crisis pregnancy center. In walks a young woman who had discovered she was testing positive on her home pregnancy test. She came into our clinic to follow up and make sure the tests were correct.

She thought she felt movement inside of her, but wasn’t so sure it wasn’t in her head. She explained she had taken an RU-486 abortion pill some months prior and thought she might be imagining a baby moving. We naturally assumed that perhaps she was pregnant again, as a woman’s chance of pregnancy after a womb-loss is high.