Last week, a federal court permanently blocked a portion of a Colorado law that prevents pro-life medical professionals from providing the option of abortion pill reversal (APR) to women. Under the narrowly tailored ruling, state officials are barred from enforcing the law against faith-based medical providers because it subjects the “off-label use” of the supplemental, natural hormone progesterone to different regulation on based the provider’s religion. 

In April 2023, Colorado legislators enacted a bill titled “Deceptive Trade Practice Pregnancy-related Service.” This bill contained a section that labeled the use of APR as “unprofessional conduct,” because none of the state’s three medical licensing boards accepted APR as a “generally accepted standard of practice.” The day the bill was signed, the Catholic mother-daughter team who own and operate the Denver-area Bella Health and Wellness clinic challenged the provision with a lawsuit, which was soon joined by another pregnancy center, Castle Rock Women’s Health.

The faith-based pregnancy centers asserted that they have a “religious obligation” to offer APR to women who have taken the abortion pill and who wish to stop their abortion in progress. The State of Colorado argued it was necessary to prohibit the use of progesterone in this manner due to “potential” safety and efficacy risks. However, the judge’s ruling noted that the state promotes the off-label use of progesterone to prevent miscarriages and other pregnancy complications with the support of clinical research, and even promotes its use in gender interventions despite its “similar” concerns about safety and efficacy. The judge stated that state officials did not show “any compelling evidence” that abortion pill reversal via progesterone is any different from the other off-label uses of the hormone.

Judge Domenico stated the law has “targeted” these faith-based pregnancy centers for their “religious conduct.”

“Overall, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Plaintiffs’ use of progesterone is not being regulated neutrally—it is being singled out,” wrote U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico. “It targets one particular, FDA-approved, drug for differential regulation. Even as to that drug, it permits any off-label uses—except the one that is a necessary part of what Defendants concede is Plaintiffs’ religious calling.”

Judge Domenico concluded that the “lack of regulation” of progesterone for gender interventions demonstrates that the law is not generally applicable to other “non-religious” uses and that faith-based providers must be allowed to continue offering APR.

The APR protocol uses progesterone, a safe and naturally occurring hormone that has been used effectively for decades to prevent miscarriage and preterm labor. Progesterone can potentially reverse the effects of the abortion pill Mifepristone if a woman changes her mind within 72 hours after taking the drug. Mifepristone starves the baby to death by blocking progesterone which helps a woman’s body sustain the baby.

According to Dr. William Lile, who is board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and who has delivered thousands of babies, progesterone is “bio-identical” and “as natural as it can possibly be” to what a pregnant woman produces. Dr. Lile told Liberty Counsel that he has personally reversed the abortion pill 15 out of 19 times (a 78 percent success rate) and that abortion pill reversal protocol has safely reversed Mifepristone thousands of times across the nation.

Statistics show that the APR protocol has likely saved more than 6,000 unborn babies with a success rate of up to 64-68 percent.

More information about reversing the abortion pill can be viewed here.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The government does not have the discretion to regulate one particular off-label use of an FDA-approved supplemental hormone due to the religious beliefs of those prescribing it. Pregnancy centers have the ability to give a woman a chance to save her unborn baby by safely reversing an abortion using progesterone, a hormone that has been used for half a century to maintain at-risk pregnancies. Colorado’s law unlawfully denied women the choice to save their babies. The U.S. District Court of Colorado made the right decision to allow women a safe alternative rather than having to go through with killing their unborn child.”