U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico said in an opinion on Saturday that a Colorado law banning so-called medication abortion reversal treatment likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom. His order stops the state from enforcing the law against Bella Health and Wellness, which sued to block it, or against anyone else working with Bella Health, while he considers the medical center’s challenge to the law.

The office of Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, which defended the law, declined to comment.

Medication abortion begins with the drug mifepristone, which blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, crucial for sustaining pregnancy, and is completed with a second drug, misoprostol. Proponents of the so-called medication abortion reversal say that if a woman changes her mind after taking mifepristone but before taking misoprostol, the pregnancy can be continued by administering a high dose of progesterone.

There are no large controlled studies of the treatment, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said that its safety and efficacy are unsupported by science.

      • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It should say right on the top of the box.

        FAITH ITEM - NOT MEDICINE

        or something like that.

        • littletoolshed@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Are you suggesting that a massive dose of progesterone should not be considered medication? Because that’s what this article is about.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            He’s suggesting that “medicine” has effects backed by some reasonable amount of scientific study. Telling people to ingest random substances that don’t have that is essentially witchcraft, not medicine.

            • littletoolshed@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              But if you want to label progesterone as “faith items”, don’t they become even less controlled? If they are labeled as a medical item (or whatever makes sense to keep nut jobs from ‘prescribing’ it) wouldn’t they fall under more observation and inspection and control? The whole reason I’m asking these questions is because it seems like you all want to give religious nut jobs the ability to dose people with hormones as part of a religious ritual. Is that what you all are saying? I did say at the beginning that I might be misunderstanding.

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I see your point, but I’m pretty sure there’s a legal way to both prohibit doctors from prescribing it and from witch-doctor nutjobs from “prescribing” it.

            • littletoolshed@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, it’s a hormone. Which is why I imagine any synthesis of it would be controlled like a medication and not declared as a faith item. But maybe I misunderstand

              • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                It shouldn’t be able to be marketed as medicine, because medicine is held to a higher standard. Kind of like how supplements and naturopathic stuff can’t claim to be medicine.

                • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Well, I assume progesterone has some valid medical uses as a drug…. This ain’t that, though, and they’re should create a law that says “medically unproven treatements are bad and can get you canned”…

                  …. (Oh wait. They have that, don’t they?)