Rumor: Teens Using Cow Drugs For Abortions

Reports began surfacing over the weekend of a potentially alarming trend in the mid-west: teen girls using veterinary medications to perform abortions on themselves.

We say ‘potentially’ because the reports, so far, are fuzzy at best. The story broke after the American Animal Hospital Association issued an advisory to members, warning them that pregnant teen girls may be using drugs such as Prostaglandins, Cystorelin, Factrel, Gonadorelin and Lutalyse (which are used to regulate heat cycles in cows) to induce abortions in themselves.

That advisory was issued after the Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association tipped the American Veterinary Association off to the “trend”, according to DVM360. But that’s where things break down.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, no actual cases of teen girls using veterinary drugs for abortions have been documented. However, according to the Journal Sentinel, Anna Anderson, executive director of Care Net Pregnancy Center of Green County in Monroe, Wisconsin, says she has identified at least 10 girls in three counties who took some form of the drugs in the last year. Care Net is a Christian-affiliated network of pregnancy centers that offers alternatives to abortions. The drugs are available by prescription only, but are commonly found on farms where livestock is raised.

Apart from Anderson’s claim claim, no confirmed cases of teen girls taking the livestock drugs have been reported, and while the AVMA and AAHA are taking the claims seriously, so far, they are nothing more than rumors.