HUNTERSVILLE — St. Mark Respect Life Ministry and the Carolina Pro-Life Action Network (C-PLAN) organized a special presentation May 21 by local Catholic doctor Matthew Harrison on the abortion pill reversal method.
Harrison, a parishioner at St. Mark Church in Huntersville who practices family medicine, developed the method after receiving an urgent call from a woman who had taken the first dosage of the abortion pill (called RU 486), regretted her decision and wanted to save her baby. The abortion pill works by slowly depriving the unborn baby – over a certain amount of hours or days – the hormone progesterone, which is necessary to maintain the baby’s life. The first abortion pill is then followed up a few days later with a second dosage designed to expel the dead baby or embryo from the uterus.
Using his obstetrics and pharmacology experience, Harrison prescribed the mother extra dosages of the hormone, progesterone, in an attempt to counter the effects of the first abortion pill dosage. The treatment, administered in time, was successful in saving the pregnancy, and the mother gave birth to a healthy baby girl who is now 12 years old.
Over time, other mothers who regretted their decision to have a chemical abortion took the same treatment. If treatment is started within 24 hours, it has around a 65 percent success rate in saving the pregnancy. Though, Harrison noted, some pregnancies have been saved when the abortion pill reversal treatment was started up to 72 hours after taking the abortion pill.
Today many pro-life doctors have discovered this life-saving treatment and have now formed an online organization called the Abortion Pill Reversal Network, a program of Heartbeat International, where women who have taken the first abortion pill can find local referrals to help save their pregnancy.
The presentation at St. Mark Church was organized to help generate awareness of this new reversal method so more abortion-minded women are aware of options to save their pregnancy. For more information, go online to www.abortionpillreversal.com.
— Mike FitzGerald, correspondent