Abortion

An abortion can be defined as the premature ending of a pregnancy, either spontaneously, which is termed a miscarriage, or medically, through surgery or other means, such as the use of RU-486 (mifepristone), which was approved for use in the United States in 2000.

Incidence of Abortion

Each year in the United States, approximately 6 million women become pregnant; half of these pregnancies are unintentional. One in ten births result from unwanted pregnancies. While the rate of abortion is declining due to the use of emergency contraception such as RU-486 or the insertion of an intrauterine device (IUD) for up to 7 days after unprotected sex, approximately 1.3 million women choose abortion as a way to deal with their unintended pregnancy.

Why Women Choose Abortion

While the decision to have an abortion is a difficult one for many women, the most common reasons for abortion include:

Failure of birth control, which occurs for approximately half of those seeking an abortion

Lack of ability to care for a child

To terminate an unintended pregnancy

To end a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest, which occurs about 13,000 times in the United States each year

To alleviate physical or mental conditions that would endanger the mother's life if the pregnancy were to be continued to full term

To prevent the birth of a child with severe medical problems or physical defects, such as mental retardation, which have been detected through amniocentesis or other second trimester testing to check for such defects.

Examinations and Testing

Before a woman gets an abortion, a medical history is taken, and she is given a physical examination, which typically includes checking vital signs such as heart rate and blood pressure, listening to breathing and heart rate, and performing a pelvic examination, which checks the uterus to determine the number of weeks of the pregnancy and ovaries, and fallopian tubes to determine if there is an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy.

Types of Abortion

There are two types of abortion: medical and surgical. Medical abortion, which is 98% effective if used within the first 9 weeks of the pregnancy, involves the use of medication. Use of medication as the pregnancy progresses becomes less effective, which means that surgery is necessary to make sure that a full abortion has occurred. Medical care both before and after medical abortion is necessary.

Surgical abortion is the physical removal of the fetus from the uterus. A number of techniques are used depending how far along the pregnancy has progressed. During the first trimester – 3 to 12 weeks – the pregnancy can be ended by use of manual vacuum aspiration (MVA), wherein a small tube is inserted into the uterus and the fetus is sucked out. Dilation and curettage (D & C) clears the uterus through scraping with a sharp instrument, and is typically done when the vacuum method has not worked.

Dilation and Evacuation (D & E) is a combination of the MVA and D & C, and is used during the second trimester – between 13 and 24 weeks. Even though abortion, in most cases, is considered minor surgery, follow up care may be necessary. In short, while it is always best to prevent unwanted pregnancies from occurring, if abortion is chosen, the sooner it is done, the more options one has and the less complicated and risky the procedure.

By Eve Visconti

Abortion

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