A North Carolina doctor has developed a treatment that can reverse chemical abortions, providing an option for women who regret taking the abortion pill.
Since Dr. Matthew Harrison developed the Emergency Abortion Pill Reversal Kit, he has saved over 137 babies who were born without any complications, Fox 46’s Bill Melugin reported. Currently, there are 76 pregnant mothers who were able to stay pregnant after using the kit.
“It’s exciting, mainly because I see it empowering these women,” Harrison told Fox 46. “I mean they were in a hopeless and dark place at one time, they thought there wasn’t any hope.”
Autumn Barnes is one of these mothers who was able to save the life of her now 5-month-old son, Walker (pictured above), by using the reversal kit.
When Barnes discovered that she was unexpectedly pregnant with her second child, she felt scared and decided to have a chemical abortion. Immediately after taking the pill, however, she regretted her decision.
“It just kept running through my mind, I just killed my baby, I have a little girl at home, how is it fair that I just took an innocent child’s life?” she said.
After using the reversal kit, Barnes was relieved to discover that it had saved her baby when she went for an ultrasound appointment the next day.
“I was so happy, I think my smile was contagious,” she said. “Seeing his heartbeat was like oh my goodness that’s my baby, and he’s safe, and he’s alive and hopefully he’s healthy.”
The abortion pill (also known as RU486, or mifepristone) starves the child in utero of progesterone, the hormone it needs to grow. After 48-72 hours, this procedure is followed by a labor-inducing drug, Cyotec, to expel the baby’s dead body from the mother’s womb.
When administered within 72 hours of taking the abortion pill, the reversal kit can effectively counterbalance it by flooding a woman’s system with progesterone. To be successful, however, a woman must use the reversal kit before she takes the labor-inducing drug. If a mother uses the kit after taking Cyotec, there’s a slight (5 percent) chance that the baby could be born with birth defects that would affect the development of a baby’s face and hands.
There are over 300 medical centers nationwide that work in tandem with abortionpillreversal.com, a website dedicated to providing information about the reversal kit to mothers. To get the kit, women should call the website’s 24/7 hotline, and volunteers will connect them with a nearby medical center to administer it.
If you or someone you know is considering an abortion or is in need immediate assistance, abortionpillreversal.com can be reached at their 24/7 hotline: 877-558-0333.
