Case: 23-10362 Document: 543-1 Page: 18 Date Filed: 08/16/2023
completely expelled. I have cared for approximately five women who, after a chemical abortion, have required admission for a blood transfusion or intravenous antibiotics or both.
For example, in one month while covering the emergency room, my group practice admitted three women to the hospital. Of the three women admitted in one month due to chemical abortion complications, one required admission to the intensive care unit for sepsis and intravenous antibiotics, one required a blood transfusion for hemorrhage, and one required surgical completion for the retained products of conception (i.e., the doctors had to surgically finish the abortion with a suction aspiration procedure).
Dr. Skop Declaration ¶¶ 17–18, 22. She also described one occurrence where a woman’s mifepristone prescriber did not offer surgical care in response to heavy bleeding. That, in turn, required Dr. Skop to perform the follow-up surgical procedure:
In my office, I treated one young woman who had been bleeding for six weeks after she took the chemical abortion drugs given to her by a doctor at a Planned Parenthood clinic. After two follow-ups at Planned Parenthood, during which she was given additional misoprostol but not offered surgical completion, she presented to me for help. I performed a sonogram, identified a significant amount of pregnancy tissue remaining in her uterus, and performed a suction aspiration procedure to resolve her complication.
Id. ¶ 23. Dr. Nancy Wozniak also described a serious complication in detail, in which the patient was at risk of bleeding to death:
One of my patients, who was about nine weeks pregnant, had previously been treated by hospital staff for a pulmonary embolism with anti-coagulants. She was advised that she could not seek a chemical abortion because it was contraindicated due to the medications; yet the woman left the hospital and sought an abortion at Planned Parenthood of Indiana.
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