The abortion rights debate in the United States has been accompanied by widespread misinformation regarding health issues and legal rights.

Concerns about the safety of abortions
The American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal assistance center with 3.7 million Facebook followers, has produced a highly circulated post arguing that "abortion is not safe" and urging the US Supreme Court to reject claims that it is. This is a widespread claim, but it is not supported by evidence.

While all medical treatments include some risk, the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that between 2013 and 2018, there were 0.4 deaths per 100,000 legal abortions in the US.
This compared to 23.8 fatalities per 100,000 live births in 2020.

In a recent Florida court case, doctor and anti-abortion activist Dr. Ingrid Skop suggested capping abortions at 15 weeks, claiming that the process grew more "difficult and risky" after this point.

Complications do rise slightly with later-pregnancy abortions, but significant complications remain extremely rare, according to research by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

In the United States, 98 percent of abortions are performed within the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion pill controversy
Non-surgical abortions can be performed during the first 10-12 weeks of pregnancy using two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol.

This has become the most prevalent form of abortion in the United States and is universally regarded as safe by expert organizations.

Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion advocacy group, is one of numerous that argue the practice is harmful.

"If the abortion business genuinely cared about women's health, they would not urge women to put their health and lives at risk with deadly chemical medications," the group claimed in a Facebook post.

The Food and Drug Administration claims a rate of 0.35 deaths per 100,000 pharmaceutical abortions, which is extremely low when compared to the hazards of abortion.

As the usage of abortion pills has increased, so has the advertising of "abortion-reversal pills," which are marketed as a way to stop the procedure if a woman changes her mind after taking the first of two abortion pills.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, there is no evidence that these "reversal" pills work.

Are ectopic pregnancy terminations under threat?
"Abortion is the treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, a septic uterus, or a miscarriage that your body refuses to release. You die if you can't have those abortions "according to one Twitter message

Hundreds of similar postings have circulated online, implying that states enacting tight abortion regulations will prohibit these life-saving therapies.
All states in the United States that have or are planning to enact abortion bans include exceptions to preserve the woman's life in their proposed legislation.
In Arkansas, where abortion is illegal unless it saves a woman's life, the legislation specifies that removing a potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancy - in which an egg is fertilized outside the womb - is "not an abortion.

Nonetheless, concerns about the health repercussions of tougher abortion regulations for women remain.