Thread by @MariekeBloos

Dutch women who took an abortion pill are being persuaded by anti-abortion activists to urgently reverse that treatment by taking a medically risky "regret" pill.

https://twitter.com/DeBovengrondse/status/1369566937768984577

Anti-abortion protesters at abortion clinics try to persuade women on the spot or refer them to the evangelical organization Er Is Hulp. A GP practice in Urk then writes out the prescriptions. The drug used, with the female sex hormone progesterone, is not registered as an

abortion pill stopper, says the Medicines Evaluation Board. The treatment can have serious effects on both the woman and her fetus, according to the Board.
The use as an "abortion stopper" comes from the United States, where the pill is also controversial. A study on the pill

at the end of 2019 at the University of California was cut short because of the medical risks for the participating women.
The Steenbank GP practice in Urk prescribes the pill annually to about fifteen women, according to a statement by the concerned GP Peter Hildering.

According to him, the use is medically safe and there are no complications. Hildering recently passed away from Covid-19.
The Urk GP practice also prescribed the controversial medication after Hildering's death, according to the Investico study.

An editor posing as a woman-with-regret over the phone was given the prescription with hardly any questions, even though the doctor did not know her and was not informed about any other medication or medical history.

There was also no time for reflection: half an hour after the telephone consultation, the anti-abortion pill could be collected from the pharmacy.

The practice wrote the prescription in the name of the now-deceased general practitioner. That is illegal, says Annemieke Horikx of the Pharmacists Association. "No one, not even a doctor, should prescribe under the name of another doctor."

According to the Pharmacists Association, the pill is in fact an overdose of progesterone. "Without proper research, this is not a means that can be unleashed on these women."

Dutch GPs have a lot of freedom in prescribing medicines, even for applications that are not standard. Prescribing 'off-label', without a thorough clinical study, is permitted if there is sufficient evidence from practice that the drug helps and that it 'is the best

conceivable treatment for the patient at that time', according to the guideline of the Dutch College of General Practitioners. However, the Society has never heard of the abortion pill stopper, the spokesman said, not even as an "off-label" application.