On 28 April 2025, the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) published the largest-known study into complications arising from the use of the abortion pills.[i] Jamie Bryan Hall and Ryan T. Anderson, analysed data from a U.S. insurance claims database that included 865,727 patient cases in which mifepristone had been prescribed for an induced medical abortion. On 12 May, they published further data and analysis,[ii] showing a real-world failure rate for medical abortion of 5.26% – a rate that aligns with our own findings here in the UK.
The following table shows the results from their data analysis. The authors explain how they carefully selected cases using ICD-10 codes and hospital diagnosis coding to ensure they only counted those cases arising from the use of mifepristone for an induced abortion. What they found was that more than five per cent of women using the abortion pills subsequently needed further treatment in hospital when the initial abortion treatment failed. In hospital these women were either treated with additional doses of the abortion medication or had a surgical procedure to complete the abortion. These treatments were deemed to be necessary by the hospital medical teams, to ensure complete removal of all retained products of conception, to prevent ongoing bleeding, and to mitigate against the risk of infection.
Our own analysis of officially published data from NHS England for 2022 showed 11,256 women were admitted and treated in the same way, for the same reasons. These cases represented about 6% of all women who self-managed their medical abortion at home.[iii]
Hall and Anderson discuss how the rate they found for subsequent surgical intervention to treat an incomplete medical abortion, aligns with the rate from U.S. trials stated by the drug manufacturer in its FDA-approved drug label. As we discussed in this earlier post, in the UK, Ranbaxy and Linepharma both warn of a non-negligible risk of failure in the range 4.5% to 7.8%.[iv] In it’s SmPC (summaries of product characteristics) Ranbaxy (UK) Limited, the manufacturer of Medabon, the mifepristone/misoprostol combination treatment used by BPAS, states: [v]
- The non-negligible risk of failure, which occurs in 4.5 to 7.8% of the cases, makes the follow-up visit mandatory in order to check that abortion is complete. The patient should be informed that surgical treatment may be required to achieve complete abortion.
- Because it is important to have access to appropriate medical care if an emergency develops, the treatment procedure should only be performed where the patient has access to medical facilities equipped to provide surgical treatment for incomplete abortion, or emergency blood transfusion or resuscitation during the period from the first visit until discharged by the administering qualified medical professional.
The EPPC study is important to us here, it shows that U.S. hospital data align with UK NHS data and trail data from the drug manufacturers; all these agree that more than one-in-twenty women who use the abortion pill at home, will subsequently need hospital treatment for complications arising from that treatment.
In 2022, that was more than 11,000 women in England, not just the 300 reported by the government and by the abortion providers.
[i] Hall, J. B. (2025, May 16). The abortion pill harms women. Ethics & Public Policy Center. https://eppc.org/stop-harming-women/
[ii] Hall, J. B. (2025, May 12). The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals Repeated Abortion Attempts Due to High Failure Rate – Ethics & Public Policy Center. Ethics & Public Policy Center. https://eppc.org/publication/the-abortion-pill-harms-womeninsurance-data-reveals-repeated-abortionattempts-due-to-high-failure-rate/
[iii] Duffy, K. (2025, February 3). Government under-reports abortion complications by a factor of 38x. Percuity. https://percuity.blog/2025/01/14/government-under-reports-abortion-complications-by-a-factor-of-38x/
[iv] Duffy, K. (2023, December 22). The Abortion Pill is not always effective. Percuity. https://percuity.blog/2023/04/10/the-abortion-pill-is-not-always-effective/
[v] Medabon – Combipack of Mifepristone 200 mg tablet and Misoprostol 4 x 0.2 mg vaginal tablets – Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) – (emc) | 3380. (n.d.). https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/3380/smpc
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