A Colorado district court issued an order Friday permanently blocking a state law that prevents pro-life medical professionals from providing women the option of abortion pill reversal. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent licensed nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife Chelsea Mynyk in her successful intervention in the case, Bella Health and Wellness v. Weiser.
Abortion pill reversal is a safe and often effective treatment for women who change their minds about chemical abortion and can reverse the effects of the first chemical abortion drug, saving the life of the unborn child. In April 2023, however, Colorado enacted a law that prohibits doctors and nurses from providing abortion pill reversal, forcing women to undergo abortions they wish to avoid.
“Government officials can’t silence medical professionals and prevent them from saving lives,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “Many women regret their chemical abortions, and some choose to reverse the effects of the first abortion drug, which can save their baby’s life. But Colorado’s law wrongly attempted to deny women the freedom to make that choice. The court is right to rule that the state can’t force women to follow through with a chemical abortion when a safe alternative is available—one that Chelsea and the pro-life plaintiffs in this case can skillfully provide.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty sued Colorado on behalf of Bella Health and Wellness, a pro-life pregnancy center, in April 2023 and secured a preliminary injunction, preventing Colorado’s law from being enacted while the lawsuit continues. But the injunction applied to only Bella Health and Wellness.
Mynyk runs her own clinic, Castle Rock Women’s Health, where she provides reproductive health care services to women. Like Bella Health and Wellness, Mynyk believes that she is compelled by her faith to provide abortion pill reversal to women who request it. In February 2024, Mynyk received a letter from the Colorado State Board of Nursing notifying her that she is being investigated for a possible violation of the Nurse Practice Act because of an anonymous complaint about her provision of abortion pill reversal.
“It is not disputed that by effectively prohibiting them from using a particular treatment for pregnant women, this law burdened Plaintiffs’ sincerely held religious beliefs…” the court wrote in its opinion. “[W]hile the clinical efficacy of abortion pill reversal remains debatable, nobody has been injured by the treatment and a number of women have successfully given birth after receiving it.”
