Study debunks widespread claim that abortion-inducing drugs are ‘safer than Tylenol’

A peer-reviewed analysis by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) not only confronts the widely-professed claim of abortion activists that abortion-inducing drugs are “safer than Tylenol,” but also finds no evidence of its credibility.

Published Tuesday in the journal BioTech, the research, titled “The Origins and Proliferation of Unfounded Comparisons Regarding the Safety of Mifepristone,” revealed there is no “controlled, scientifically appropriate study” that compares the abortion drug to the drug Tylenol in existence. 

Indeed, one overarching finding of the analysis by CLI director of life sciences Cameron Louttit, Ph.D., is that the popular abortion industry talking point is founded on “flawed methodology,” CLI noted.

A second major outcome of the analysis is that, by backing up the catchy slogan with reports on death rates alone, the abortion lobby has failed to acknowledge other risk factors related to mifepristone, including the dangers of “sepsis and hemorrhage.” 

Citing yet a third discovery, CLI states that studies claiming Tylenol-related deaths are more numerous than those from abortion drugs are guilty of “context misrepresentation.”

“While Tylenol-related deaths often result from misuse in a much larger user base, deaths from abortion drugs occur under prescribed use,” CLI points out.

“Put simply, it is not possible to draw any conclusion from the comparison of drugs with different uses, administered in different manners, and used by individuals with different risk factors,” Louttit writes. “Not only have the comparisons between mifepristone and other drugs failed in their duty to adequately assess this impossibility, but they have also demonstrated a complete disregard for the need to communicate comprehensive and truthful safety information to patients, policymakers, jurists, and the public.”

The researcher explains that the ease with which abortion advocates – including government officials who influence public health and safety policy – have reiterated the false claim over the past 20 years defies true science.

“In collapsing complex safety considerations into simplistic comparisons that leverage wholly incomparable metrics, these assertions systematically violate the norms and regulations that inform evidence-based biomedical communication,” Louttit asserts. “Despite this, however, they have reached both the most diffuse and influential levels of our discourse over the span of roughly two decades, buoyed by the false and dangerous perception of scientific reference and expert consensus.”

In April 2023, Texas-based OB/GYN Dr. Ingrid Skop debunked claims of mifepristone’s overwhelming safety, explaining how the abortion lobby and its allies have covered up the dangers of the drug with a gross oversimplification and a flippant slogan.

“Regarding chemical abortion, the industry tells us it’s safer than Tylenol,” Skop testified. “They’re comparing Tylenol overdose deaths to the undercounted deaths from chemical abortion. There’s no comparison. Women assume they mean normal Tylenol use. They don’t realize that they’re comparing it to deaths that happen from overdoses.”

The OB/GYN explained why abortion providers have limited awareness of the serious complications from mifepristone.

“But my experience has been, because the women have been assured it is so safe, when they have a complication, they do not return to the abortion provider,” Skop stated. “They come to me as their gynecologist, or they come to the emergency room in distress.” 

“And, so, when we look at good quality records linkage studies that detect all chemical abortions and all subsequent events, we find 5 to 6% of these women present to an emergency room within a month,” she explained. 

“Approximately the same number will require surgery because their bodies cannot evacuate all of the dead tissue,” Skop argued. “And I am still caring for these complications in Texas – even though we’ve had abortion limitations for quite some time – because these drugs are circulating in the state to try to circumvent our state laws and provide abortions, to these unfortunate women.”

Louttit’s research backs up those points. “[T]he simplistic slogan that ‘mifepristone is safer than Tylenol,’ though easily disseminated, defies both an intuitive understanding of how we evaluate drug safety and our norms and regulations for doing so,” he writes. “Indeed, if such an assertion was attributable to the manufacturer, it would precipitate a reprimand by the FDA given the lack of specific, controlled, and head-to-head evidence rightly required for its support.”

Since the claim is frequently echoed by “medical societies, abortion centers, clinical researchers, and government officials,” a critical look at the evidence behind it has been essential, the researcher adds, as many of those who repeat it have already influenced public health policy and, subsequently, the lives of women and girls who attempt a “do-it-yourself” (DIY) abortion.  

“For years now, the abortion lobby’s claim that abortion drugs are ‘safer than Tylenol’ has dominated public discussion, propelled by the illusion of scientific consensus,” Louttit concludes. “However, no such support exists. This baseless claim, repeated by medical societies, politicians, media pundits and researchers, has profoundly influenced public opinion and policy. But as this paper details, those spreading it lack the evidence they routinely claim.”