Case: 23-10362 Document: 543-1 Page: 17 Date Filed: 08/16/2023
gency D&C. The patient needed to be hospitalized overnight for close observation after the D&C.
Not only did my partner need to provide several hours of critical care for this patient, but my partner also needed to call in a back-up physician to care for another critically ill patient. And because the preborn baby still had a heartbeat when the patient presented, my partner felt as though she was forced to participate in something that she did not want to be a part of—completing the abortion.
Dr. Francis Declaration ¶ 13. Dr. Francis also testified to another example where a woman had developed an infection as a result of using mifepristone:
After taking the chemical abortion drugs, [the patient] began having very heavy bleeding followed by significant abdominal pain and a fever. When I saw her in the emergency room, she had evidence of retained pregnancy tissue along with endometritis, an infection of the uterine lining. She also had acute kidney injury, with elevated creatinine. She required a dilation and curettage (D&C) surgery to finish evacuating her uterus of the remaining pregnancy tissue and hospitalization for intravenous (IV) antibiotics, IV hydration, and a blood transfusion.
Id. ¶ 12.[1] Dr. Ingrid Skop also testified to caring for many women experiencing severe complications due to mifepristone:
In my practice, I have cared for at least a dozen women who have required surgery to remove retained pregnancy tissue after a chemical abortion. Sometimes this includes the embryo or fetus, and sometimes it is placental tissue that has not been
- ↑ At oral argument, Defendants discounted the relevance of this instance because the patient obtained mifepristone from outside of the country. Mifeprex is only marketed and distributed in the United States, so the incident almost certainly did not involve FDA-approved Mifeprex. We agree that the evidence is not as probative as other examples—discussed below—that involve brand name mifepristone. But the incident still supports the proposition that mifepristone sometimes causes severe adverse events.
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