Controversial 'Abortion Reversal' Regimen Is Put To The Test
Dr. Mitchell Creinin never expected to be in the position of investigating a treatment he doesn't think works.
And yet, Creinin will be spending the next year or so using a research grant from the Society of Family Planning to put to the test a treatment he sees as dubious — one that recently has gained traction, mostly via the Internet, among groups that oppose abortion. They call it "abortion pill reversal."
The technique — a series of oral or injected doses of the hormone progesterone given over the course of several days — arose outside the usual avenues of scientific testing, says Creinin, a medical researcher and professor at the University of California, Davis.
Creinin, an OB-GYN, has spent the bulk of his career in family planning research. He has studied topics ranging from different treatments for miscarriage to how women choose birth control methods.
Performing abortions, he says, has always been a part of his practice and philosophy. "I need to provide these services to help women," Creinin says.
Proponents of "abortion pill reversal" say it can stop a medication-based abortion in the first trimester, if the progesterone is administered in time.
But Creinin says the progesterone treatments are ineffective at best in halting an abortion that has already
