Abortion
Medical procedure ending pregnancy; subject of global legal and ethical debate.
The deliberate ending of a pregnancy through the extraction or expulsion of an embryo or fetus is what is meant by abortion, and when used without qualification, the term typically signifies induced abortion.[1]
Quick Facts
- Synonym
- Induced miscarriage, termination of pregnancy
- Field
- Obstetrics and gynecology
- Medlineplus
- 007382
- Emedicine
- 252560
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
Unsafe abortions cause between 22,000 and 44,000 deaths and 6.9 million hospital admissions each year.[2] Abortion rates changed little between 2003 and 2008, having decreased for at least two decades as access to family planning increased.[3] The World Health Organization defines unsafe abortions as procedures performed by persons lacking necessary skills or in environments not conforming to minimal medical standards.[4] Contemporary abortion techniques involve either medication or surgery; the combination of mifepristone (RU-486) with prostaglandin demonstrates safety and effectiveness comparable to surgical methods during both the first and second trimesters.[2]
The predominant surgical approach entails cervical dilation followed by suction evacuation.[2] The WHO reports that roughly 45% of the 73 million annual abortions are performed unsafely.[5] Starting in 1973, a worldwide movement toward broader legal abortion access has emerged, yet moral, religious, ethical, and legal disagreements persist.[6] Throughout history, people have tried to end pregnancies using herbal remedies, sharp instruments, vigorous massage, and other conventional techniques.[7]
What the cited sources add
The WHO also states that abortion is a simple health care intervention that can be safely managed by a wide range of health workers using medication or a surgical procedure.[5] According to the WHO, in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a medical abortion can be safely self-managed by the pregnant person outside of a health care facility.[5] The WHO reports that regulations forcing women to travel for legal care, or requiring mandatory counseling or waiting periods, can make abortion inaccessible to women with low resources.[5] The WHO estimates that in developing countries alone, 7 million women per year were treated in hospital facilities for complications of unsafe abortion in 2012.[5]
The eMedicine article notes that after the 1973 US Supreme Court's Roe v Wade decision, the number of abortions in the United States peaked at 1.6 million in 1990.[8] The eMedicine article states that 92.8% of abortions in the United States are performed at or before 13 weeks’ gestation.[8] The WHO points out that the absence of safe, timely, affordable, and respectful abortion services constitutes a serious public health and human rights concern.[5]
References
- Wikipedia, "Abortion" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rao, "Abortion", Oxford Constitutional Law, 2016; "abortion", Oxford English Dictionary; "Abortion (noun)", Oxford Living Dictionaries (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abortion" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Medical methods for first trimester abortion", The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, May 2022; "Medical methods for first trimester abortion", The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, May 2022; "A review of evidence for safe abortion care", Contraception, September 2013, p. 350–363; "Self-management Recommendation 50: Self-management of medical abortion in whole or in part at gestational ages < 12 weeks (3.6.2) - Abortion care guideline", WHO Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research; "Self-managed medication aborti en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abortion" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Abortion", WHO; "Worldwide, an estimated 25 million unsafe abortions occur each year", World Health Organization, 28 September 2017; "Induced abortion: incidence and trends worldwide from 1995 to 2008", Lancet, February 2012, p. 625–632; "Legal abortion worldwide: incidence and recent trends", International Family Planning Perspectives, September 2007, p. 106–116; "Induced Abortion Worldwide", Guttmacher Institute, 2018-03-01; "Critical gaps in universal access to reproductive health: contraception and prevention of unsafe abortion", Internat en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abortion" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Abortion", WHO; "Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic", Lancet, November 25, 2006, p. 1908–1919; "Induced abortion: an overview for internists", Annals of Internal Medicine, April 2004, p. 620–626 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- "Abortion", WHO. facts only, no text reused. who.int
- Wikipedia, "Abortion" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Staff, "Roe Abolition Makes U.S. a Global Outlier", Foreign Policy, 2022-06-24; "Medical ethics and humanities", Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2010, p. 249; "Bioethics a nursing perspective", Confederation of Australian Critical Care Nurses Journal, 2009, p. 24–30; "What do 55 million people have in common?", Fox News, 18 October 2013; "Abortion: Murder, or Medical Procedure?", The Huffington Post, 18 March 2014; "Reproductive freedom, torture and international human rights: challenging the masculinisation of torture", Taylor & Francis, 2013, en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abortion" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sánchez, "Mexico decriminalizes abortion, extending Latin American trend of widening access to procedure", AP News, 2023-09-06; "Developments in laws on induced abortion: 1998-2007", International Family Planning Perspectives, September 2008, p. 110–120; "Management of Unintended and Abnormal Pregnancy", John Wiley & Sons, 2009 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Therapeutic Abortion", eMedicine, 28 September 2004. facts only, no text reused. emedicine.medscape.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Abortion (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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