Abortion Process

Abortion has been a very debatable issue in the last 50 years in the United States, and various countries were it’s been legalized. Induced by issues of ethics and morality, it’s been the winning horse that politicians gamble, to win their election.

The medical definition o f abortion is “An abortion is the premature termination of pregnancy resulting in the death of any or all carried embryo(s) or fetus (es).”(www. en.wikipedia.org).

In the United States, there is an abortion can be done: vacuum aspiration, medicine, or surgery:

1. Vacuum aspiration: (Manual vacuum aspiration “MVA” or Dilation and suction curettage “D&C”) which is basically emptying the uterus with suction, this procedure more like a minor surgery without incision that may involve anesthesia, done in a clinical office and available through the first trimester, and sometimes up till 20 weeks into pregnancy.

2. Medication Abortion: At the clinic the patient, take by mouth, 200 mg. of Mifeprex. The patient is given, misoprostol, to insert at home in her vagina, between 6 and 48 hours after taking the Mifeprex. These medications expel the pregnancy by blocking the action of progesterone, a hormone needed to sustain pregnancy, thus causing the pregnancy to separate from the uterine lining, the uterus will contract, and the cervix will soften and open. This Procedure is approved up to 9 weeks of pregnancy.

3. Surgical Abortion Abortions performed after 14 weeks of pregnancy can be performed using two main methods: Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) or Dilation and extraction abortions (D&X). D& E procedure uses the dilatators the same way as D&C, but the dilation taking between few hours and overnight. Then the fetal tissue and the fluid around the fetus are removed from the uterus with surgical instruments. (D&X) is often referred to by anti-abortion groups, as Partial birth Abortion. During a dilation and evacuation, the doctor terminates the pregnancy by dismembering the fetus inside the uterus or as it is extracted from the uterus into the vagina. Because the fetal skull is too large to pass through a cervix that is only partially dilated, the head is crushed with forceps prior to extraction from the uterus. Then each fetal part is dismembered to prevent injury to the woman, due uterine tears or perforations by bony fragments fetal bones. This operation is mostly performed when the fetus has died, badly malformed, or a continued pregnancy would place the woman's life or health in jeopardy.

Even though its a is a very old procedure, it didn’t legal in the United States until 1973, after a very famous case Roe v. Wade, were a single woman in Texas brought a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion law that forbidden a woman to have an abortion except to save her life. The Court held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy, thus changing abortion Laws in the United States.

Before Abortion became legal, very few percentages of