Generally speaking, the average American, whether pro-life or pro-abortion, is aware that the number of abortions committed in this country is in the millions. Both the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), an arm of Planned Parenthood (PP), keep count by directly surveying doctors and clinics for the data each year. According to records they’ve compiled since 1967, when some individual states decriminalized abortion, an estimated 46 million surgical abortions have taken place in the United States. That’s an average of 1.3 million innocent lives terminated per year.

AGI reports that the number of abortions has been decreasing in recent years, from 1.36 million in 1996 to 1.29 million by 2002, with that trend continuing downward through 2005. However, these numbers don’t account for chemically induced, sometimes called medically induced, abortions, which are now on the rise.

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Whether termed “abortifacients,” “emergency contraceptives,” or the “morning after pill,” these are drugs designed to prohibit a newly conceived child from implanting in the womb for nourishment and are now widely available, with statistical use largely unreported. RU-486 (Mifepriston), methotrexate, and the Intra-uterine Device (IUD) all prevent the fertilized embryo’s implantation, with Mifepriston and methotrexate also causing the fetus to be expelled. Some injections produce the same effect. The World Health Organization’s newest “vaccines” make a woman’s immune system attack and destroy her own baby.

But the main abortion-inducing drug just may be birth control pills (BCPs). Experts in the fields of pharmacy, biology, gynecology, and obstetrics have come to the conclusion that today’s hormonal contraceptives not only possess their contraceptive properties but have potential abortifacient mechanisms that can kick in when the contraceptive mechanism fails. Though these claims are backed up with scientific evidence, contraceptive users may be innocently ignorant about the true properties of these substances.

The Need for Informed Consent

Few prescribing physicians and patients seem to be aware of the postfertilization effects of birth control pills. This lack of understanding represents a failure to fully inform patients about something with physical, moral, ethical, and psychological consequences.

In the Archives of Family Medicine, an out-of-print journal published by the American Medical Association, Drs. Walter L. Larimore and Joseph B. Stanford, in a 2000 paper entitled “Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent,” advocate for objective presentation of the potential for the abortifacient or postfertilization effects to all patients during informed-consent discussions. They propose that failure to disclose this information might violate the morals of some women and “would effectively eliminate the likelihood that the woman’s consent was truly informed.” They note that women who did not have full disclosure or understanding might learn of the abortifacient effect after taking BCPs and respond with “disappointment, anger, guilt, sadness, rage, depression, or a sense of having been violated by the provider.”

So, why hasn’t the proper and credible information been disclosed to patients? What about physicians, nurses, counselors, and religious pastors? Why have they been silent in this matter? For one thing, obscure technical and scientific journals are not everyday reading for most. The dilemma is perhaps furthered by the medical textbooks used in universities that do not distinguish between contraceptives and abortifacients — most doctors have simply never heard of it before, adding to the confusion.

However, there is another reason why there’s no clear understanding about what could be the lethal consequences of BCPs — outright deception. In the mid-60s, the American College of Obstetricians, with the agreement of the CDC and Department of Health, Education and Welfare, along with Big Pharma, adopted a new definition of pregnancy. Previously it had been defined as beginning from the moment of fertilization — conception. They redefined it, claiming pregnancy did not start until the baby is implanted in the lining of the womb, usually occurring five to seven days after conception. With this “new” definition, the abortifacient purveyors can, through semantic manipulation, openly promote abortifacients as contraceptives, hoodwinking overworked physicians and busy women alike.

The Mechanisms

According to definition, an effective contraceptive would absolutely prevent conception — it would suppress or inhibit ovulation, making it impossible for sperm to meet with eggs. The only products falling into this category are jellies and foams — spermicides — and condoms. (Diaphragms are considered a mechanical barrier and not true contraceptives. But they are not abortifacients either.)

Today’s birth control pills are not the same “Pill” of the 1960s. That first pill with its high dose of hormones did prevent ovulation in the majority (but not all) of its users, and conception. In the mid-’70s, because of the dangerous side effects associated with the high-dose “Pill,” the pharmaceutical companies started reducing the doses of the hormones estrogen and progestin from 150 micrograms down to 35 micrograms by 1988. Now, some are as low as 20 micrograms.

BCPs today work in one of three ways: by suppressing or inhibiting ovulation so that fertilization is impeded; altering cervical mucus to reduce sperm migration; or via a backup mechanism that prevents implantation of the newly conceived human life in the lining of the womb by creating a chemically hostile environment, sometimes called a postfertilization effect. In 1994, Dr. Thomas Hilgers, a respected fertility specialist and clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Creighton University School of Medicine, said, “All birth control pills available have a mechanism which disturbs or disintegrates the lining of the uterus to the extent that the possibility of abortion exists when break-through ovulation occurs.” (Break-through ovulation is the term used when the contraceptive component of the pill has failed, allowing ovulation and therefore conception to take place.)

Pharmaceutical company statements, medical textbooks, doctors, scientists, and even the government show total agreement when it comes to the abortifacient nature of the backup mechanism. Dr. Leon Speroff, the nation’s premier contraceptive expert and advocate, in his paper A Clinical Guide for Contraception, says about BCPs, “The progestin in the combination pill produces an endometrium which is not receptive to ovum implantation, a decidualized bed with exhausted and atrophied glands.” Dutch gynecologist Dr. Nine Van Der Vange of the Society for Advancement in Contraception said, “The contraceptive preparations are more complex than has been thought. They are not only based on inhibition of ovulation.”

Searle, Ortho, and Wyeth-Ayerst, major manufacturers of BCPs, admit in the fine print of some of their package inserts that alterations in the endometrium (uterine lining) reduce the likelihood of “implantation” of the already conceived embryo. Wyeth-Ayerst says its product maximizes protection “by causing endometrial changes that will not support implantation.” The Food and Drug Administration reported as early as 1976 that the pill changed “the characteristics of the uterus so that it is not receptive to a fertilized egg.” And a standard medical reference, Danforth’s Obstetrics and Gynecology, states, “The production of glycogen by the endometrial glands is diminished by the ingestion of oral contraceptives, which impairs the survival of the blastocyst in the uterine cavity.” A blastocyst refers to a newly conceived human being.

While it is difficult to quantify the postfertilization effects of BCPs due to the failure of the contraceptive component, there is scientific research available to support the thesis that chemically induced abortions are probable. Dr. Van Der Vange conducted an award-winning study and showed, from research based on ultrasound exams and hormonal indicators, a 4.7 percent rate of breakthrough ovulation occurring in women who were given high-dose pills. Dr. Don Gambrell, Jr., a gynecological endocrinologist at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, noted a 14-percent incidence of breakthrough ovulation in women taking the relatively low dose 50-microgram BCPs in his research. Of course, the greater the rate of breakthrough ovulation, the greater the chance that the postfertilization mechanism would kick in to end the pregnancy.

Dr. Bogomir M. Kuhar, a doctor of pharmacy and director of Pharmacists for Life International, cited numerous studies by experts and pharmaceutical companies in his paper Infant Homicides Through Contraception. Dr. Kuhar concluded that the average rate of breakthrough ovulation due to a number of factors is between two percent and 10 percent per cycle. By factoring in a 25-percent overall conception rate for normally fertile couples per cycle with a user estimate of 13.9 million (Kuhar’s article was written in 1993 so the user estimate might be lower than today’s), and multiplying them, he deduced a two-percent rate would yield the potential for 69,500 chemical abortions per cycle or 834,000 per year, while the 10-percent rate would yield 347,500 per cycle or 4,171,000 chemical abortions per year — almost all of them due to the pill’s abortifacient mechanisms. (Other factors such as naturally occurring miscarriages and surprise pregnancies would have some impact on the numbers.)

The longer-lasting (three months) Depo-Provera injection acts by altering the lining of the uterus, preventing implantation of the newly conceived life. Based on one million users with an ovulation rate of 40 to 60 percent, combined with a 25-percent conception rate, yields either 1.2 million chemical abortions per year, or on the higher end, 1.8 million a year. The popular Norplant, a subdermal implant of six tiny rods containing only progestin, acts up to five years as an abortifacient. With an ovulation rate of 50 to 60 percent, 2,250,000 to 2,925,000 chemical abortions might be the result.

The newer “mini-pill” uses only progestin as well, and is often given to postpartum women who are nursing their babies. Ovulation is estimated at taking place 67 to 81 percent of the time making the possibility of postfertilization effects high.

Homicidal Deception?

One thing is certain: there is no data that denies the existence of a potential post-conceptional effect; it simply cannot be ruled out. And there is evidence concerning a causal link between hormonal birth control and abortion, but nothing definitive. With the approval of RU-486 and methotrexate, both “morning after” drugs that kill the unborn swiftly and mercilessly, plus all 44 varieties of BCPs, implantable and injectable-style drugs, and the new “vaccines,” the number of surgical abortions could now pale in comparison to the chemically aborted.

For the pro-life crowd that works so tirelessly in trying to persuade women not to have a single surgical abortion, the evidence supporting chemical abortions should prove that more work needs to be done.

Ann Shibler is an editorial assistant for the John Birch Society online.

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