In the last several years, I've seen a huge uptick in the battle for women's health access and a debate over the types of abortion that should or should not be legal. Even birth control is in the hot seat, as some advocates are saying that it shouldn't be a part of health insurance plans if employers don't feel it's within their morals to do so.
What some pro-life advocates don't realize is that not every woman chooses to end a pregnancy just because she feels like it. Some pregnancies are doomed from the start, like ectopic pregnancies. And when a woman consults her doctor, she might have to choose between her life or the life of the fetus.
During the first trimester a woman might choose between a medical or a surgical abortion. The medical abortion commonly uses the RU-486 pill or Mifeprex, which is highly controversial. There's also MTX, a combination of methotrexate and misoprostol, but it's not used as often as the RU-486 pill. Medically induced abortions are usually only available during the first nine weeks of pregnancy. After that, a woman has to choose a surgical abortion, which is a more invasive procedure.
Surgical abortions involve aspiration and vacuum procedures. Under ideal circumstances, neither should be physically traumatizing, although I know some women who have experienced severe cramps after leaving.
Women don't normally consider abortions beyond the first trimester unless there is something wrong with the developing fetus, such as anencephaly, a condition in which the baby is developing without a skull and has no chance of survival outside the womb. Under these circumstances, it's heartbreaking to even have to consider that decision, and most women won't think of it as an "abortion," per se, but rather an early birth.
A woman on my birth board had to make that decision when she was around 25 weeks. Her daughter was developing without a skull, and the brain was slowly being eaten away by the amniotic fluid. The child was essentially brain dead, but the choice to end the pregnancy early was painful. I don't know if her doctor used dilation and cutterage, dilation and evacuation, or induction, but I remember reading how she held her dying child in her arms, and I cried thinking about my own unborn child still developing in the womb.
Third trimester, or late-term abortions, are extremely rare, and the partial birth procedure is against the law here in the U.S. When lawmakers talk about making abortion harder to access, or even illegal, they need to think about the reasons and the different types of abortion that a woman might need. In some cases, ending a pregnancy is the only reasonable choice.
Do you know someone who's had to have an abortion, and has that changed your mind about this issue?
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