Less than a day after Mackenna Greene used a chemical abortion drug, she was hit with a wave of regret. What she thought would be a “get-out-of-jail-free card,” as she later described, turned out to be a huge mistake.
With help from her mother, Mackenna researched the possibility of reversing the effects of the abortion drug, and she found a number for the Abortion Pill Reversal hotline. They connected her with a Colorado nurse practitioner whom Mackenna now calls “an angel”: Chelsea Mynyk.
When Mackenna asked Chelsea whether it was too late to save her baby, Chelsea couldn’t make any promises. But she immediately began the abortion pill reversal process, and on Mackenna’s next sonogram, Chelsea wrote one meaningful word: “hope.”
Thankfully, the process was successful, and Mackenna gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the summer of 2024. But if Colorado had its way, stories like this one would cease to exist.
Who is Chelsea Mynyk?
From a very young age, it was clear that Chelsea loved babies. One of her earliest memories is of her sister being born when she was just two years old.
“I just remember the midwives letting me listen to the babies’ heart taps,” Chelsea said. “I thought, ‘Wow! This is amazing. I want to do this when I get bigger.’”
Chelsea began working as a nurse’s aide in college, but she found that many hospitals had rules that would require her to assist with abortions.
“I wasn’t comfortable doing that…so I wasn’t getting hired,” Chelsea said.
She soon started working in pregnancy care centers, where she trained in ultrasound and apprenticed as a midwife. She appreciated the warm, encouraging tone that employees had when speaking with pregnant women, which was a stark contrast from some of her experiences at hospitals.
Eventually, Chelsea decided that she wanted to help women facing difficult, and sometimes life-threatening, pregnancies. She went to school in Florida to complete an advanced degree, met her husband, and became a certified midwife and nurse practitioner.
During her work as a midwife, she helped deliver about 100 babies—an experience she said that never got old. Even after two difficult pregnancies of her own, she felt God calling her to open a full-service women’s health clinic.
Chelsea and her husband, Daniel, renovated the basement of their Colorado home to create an examination room, a small kitchen, and an extra bedroom. The space became Castle Rock Women’s Health, Chelsea’s very own women’s clinic.
Colorado’s law denies women an important choice
Chelsea offers various services, including STD testing and treatment, select ultrasounds, prenatal care, and various parenting classes. When needed, she also dispenses certain medications for pregnant women, including the hormone used for abortion pill reversal (APR).
APR is a safe process that offers women a chance to continue their pregnancy if they change their mind about having an abortion. In the process, doctors and nurses use the natural hormone progesterone to counteract the effects of mifepristone, the first of two drugs commonly used in chemical abortions.
After taking mifepristone, many women regret their decision and change their minds about wanting an abortion. During the window before taking misoprostol, the second drug, APR can provide a chance to save the baby.
While APR is not guaranteed to reverse the effects of mifepristone, research shows it has a 64-68 percent success rate, and statistics indicate it has saved over 7,000 unborn children. Since progesterone is a natural hormone needed to sustain pregnancy, the process does not put women in danger.
But in April 2023, Colorado passed a law prohibiting all medical professionals from providing abortion pill reversal. The law also bars medical professionals from advertising or even informing their patients about APR.
Under this law, women like Mackenna would be denied the chance to choose APR and attempt to save their unborn children. For Chelsea, that is unacceptable.
Chelsea stands up for her beliefs
Chelsea offers APR, in part, because of her religious convictions against abortion. But Colorado’s law threatens her with fines of up to $20,000 per violation and the loss of her medical license if she continues to provide or even tell women about APR.
“I feel religiously obligated to offer this option to women—to try to make that a choice,” Chelsea said. “So, do I go with this unconstitutional law, or do I follow what God has called me to do?”
Chelsea thought this choice had been made easier when a pregnancy care center near Denver, Bella Health + Wellness, filed a lawsuit challenging the law. A federal district court granted an injunction allowing Bella Health employees to continue offering APR while the case proceeded, and Chelsea assumed that ruling applied to all providers. So, she continued offering APR.
But in January 2024, an anonymous individual filed a complaint against Chelsea because she offered APR to Mackenna. The injunction, it seemed, only applied to Bella Health. The Colorado Board of Nursing opened an investigation into Chelsea and her practice.
After a suggestion from her husband, Chelsea reached out to Alliance Defending Freedom, and we filed a motion to intervene in Bella Health’s lawsuit on her behalf.
Federal court delivers a victory for women
Thankfully, in April 2024, the district court granted ADF’s motion to intervene on Chelsea’s behalf. The judge who granted the injunction to Bella Health also extended it to Chelsea, allowing her to continue offering APR.
The court issued an even bigger win in August 2025 when it permanently blocked Colorado from enforcing this unconstitutional law against Bella Health and Chelsea. The state can still appeal the ruling, but it is undoubtedly a massive win for medical professionals like Chelsea and the women they serve.
“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.”
For Chelsea, the ruling allows her to continue following God’s direction for her life—a freedom that everyone deserves. And with this freedom, she is able to continue offering hope to women who are desperately searching for it.
“God says in the Bible that He made us in His image,” Chelsea said. “We are image-bearers of Christ, from conception, so protecting and preserving life is my duty as both a Christian and a provider.”
We must continue protecting the First Amendment
The First Amendment ensures that all Americans can live, work, and speak consistent with their consciences. Chelsea offers abortion pill reversal because she believes—in line with her Christian faith—that all human lives are precious and worthy of protection.
By passing a law that denied Chelsea and other medical providers the freedom to follow their beliefs, Colorado blatantly violated the First Amendment, and the federal district court was right to block the law.
While we should celebrate this victory in Colorado, we must also remember that the work to defend First Amendment freedoms is not finished. When it comes to abortion pill reversal specifically, ADF is involved in multiple influential cases to protect freedom.
For example, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers in New Jersey is a nationally leading organization for APR. In November 2023, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a subpoena demanding First Choice turn over 10 years’ worth of documents, including its statements about APR. He did not cite any complaints but rather targeted First Choice because of its religious and pro-life views.
ADF is representing First Choice in a lawsuit against AG Platkin for unlawfully discriminating against the pregnancy center. In June 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear this case.
Your generosity allows us to defend Chelsea, First Choice, and many others free of charge when their God-given rights are threatened. Will you support our mission with a gift today?
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