Abortion

An abortion is the medical process of ending a pregnancy so it does not

result in the birth of a baby. It is also sometimes known as a 'termination' or
a 'termination of pregnancy'.
Depending on how many weeks you have been pregnant, the pregnancy is
ended either by taking medication or by having a surgical procedure.
An estimated 44 million abortions are performed globally each year,
with slightly under half of those performed unsafely. Unsafe abortions result
in approximately 70,000 maternal deaths and 5 million hospital admissions
per year globally. 150,000 to 750,000 abortions every year 4,000 case of
abortion annually in manila.

Clinical Approach
The term abortion usually designates termination of gestation before
the end of the 28th week of pregnancy. It implies the expulsion of all or any
part of the placenta or membranes, with or without an identifiable fetus or
with a live born or stillborn infant weighing less than 1000g. If abortion
occurs before 1 week it is referred to as early abortion, and thereafter the
term is late abortion.
TYPES OF ABORTION
Threatened Abortion
Is used when a pregnancy is complicated by vaginal bleeding before
the 20th week. Pain may not be a prominent feature of threatened abortion,
although a lower abdominal dull ache sometimes accompanies the bleeding.
Vaginal examination at this stage usually reveals a closed cervix. 25% to
50% of threatened abortion eventually results in loss of the pregnancy.
Inevitable Abortion
In case of inevitable abortion, a clinical pregnancy is complicated by
both vaginal bleeding and cramp like lower abdominal pain. The cervix is
frequently partially dilated, attesting to the inevitability of the process.
Incomplete Abortion

In addition to vaginal bleeding, cramp like pain and cervical

dilatation, an incomplete abortion involves the passage of products of
conception, often described by the women as looking like pieces of skin or
liver.

Complete Abortion
In complete abortion, after passage of all the products of conception,
the uterine contractions and bleeding abate, the cervix closes, and the
uterus is smaller than the period of amenorrhea would suggest. In addition,
the symptoms of pregnancy are no longer present, and the pregnancy test
becomes negative.
Missed Abortion
The term missed abortion is used when the fetus has died but is
retained in the uterus usually for some weeks. After 16 weeks gestation,
dilatation and curettage may become a problem. Fibrinogen levels should be
checked week until the fetus and placenta are expelled.
Recurrent Abortion
Recurrent abortion refers to any case in which there have been three
consecutive spontaneous abortions. Possible causes are known to be genetic
error, anatomical abnormalities of the genital tract, hormonal abnormalities,
infection, immunologic factors, or systemic disease.
ETHICO LEGAL
Abortion in the United States is legal, via the landmark case of Roe v.
Wade. However, individual states can regulate/limit the use of abortion or
create "trigger laws", which would make abortion illegal within the first and
second trimesters if Roe were overturned by the US Supreme Court.
Currently, 6 states have trigger laws and 3 other states have laws intending
to criminalize abortion.
Article II of the 1987 Philippine Constitution says, in part, "Section 12.
The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and
strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall
equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from
conception. Revised Penal Code of the Philippines (enacted in 1930 and
remains in effect today) Articles 256, 258 and 259 of the Code mandate

imprisonment for the woman who undergoes the abortion, as well as for any
person who assists in the procedure, even if they be the womans parents, a
physician or midwife.
The principle of double effect is applied to abortion to illustrate,
consider a woman whose life is endangered by her pregnancy. Is it morally
permissible for her to have an abortion in order to save her life? The DDE
says that an abortion is not permissible. Since abortion kills an innocent
human being and since intentionally killing innocent human beings is always
wrong, it is always wrong to have an abortion-even to save the woman's life.
Abortion also fails condition 2 (the means-end condition). Killing the innocent
in order to bring about a good effect is never justified, not even to save a
whole city or the world. As the Stoics said, Let justice be done, though the
heavens fall. However, if the woman's uterus happens to be cancerous, then
she may have a hysterectomy, even though it will result in the death of the
fetus. This is because the act of removing a cancerous uterus is morally good
(thus passing condition 1). The act of performing a hysterectomy also passes
condition 3, since the death of the fetus is the unintended (though foreseen)
effect of the hysterectomy. Condition 2 is passed because the death of the
fetus isn't the means of saving the woman's life-the hysterectomy is the act
that saves her life. Condition 4 is passed, because saving the woman's life is
a great good, at least as good as saving the fetus. In this case, given the
DDE, the woman is really lucky to have a cancerous uterus (rather than a
pregnancy-related life-threatening condition). On the other hand, if the
doctor could save the woman's life only by changing the composition of the
amniotic fluid (say, with saline solution), which in turn would kill the fetus;
this would not be morally permissible according to the DDE. In this case, the
same result occurs as in the hysterectomy, but killing the fetus is intended as
the means of saving the woman's life. Similarly, a craniotomy, or crushing
the fetus's head in order to remove it and thus save the woman's life, would
be disallowed, since this would violate conditions 2 and 3.

Moral
Even if we all agreed that a fetus has a right to life, the abortion
debate would not be over. Questions then arise about whether the mother's
right of self-determination overrides the rights of the fetus. It is the mother's
body which is affected by the pregnancy, and it is her life, health, and
emotional state that may be drastically impacted. These factors carry at
least some weight. The most commonly accepted extenuating circumstances

concern pregnancies that result from rape and incest, and those in which the
womans life is at risk. Occasionally, though, some abortion critics take the
hard line position that no extenuating circumstance overrides the fetuss
right to life, and thus all abortions are wrong. For example, in 2006
Nicaragua enacted a law banning abortion in all cases, including when a
woman's life is endangered, and imposed a six year prison term on those
who perform them. The law was heavily influenced by the countrys religious
conservatism, which is 85% Roman Catholic. Most people in our country and
throughout the rest of the world find this position too extreme and recognize
that there are at least some extenuating circumstances that justify abortion.
In a famous article on this subject, titled A Defense of Abortion (1971),
American philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson argued that, even if we grant
that fetuses have a fundamental right to life, in three specific situations the
rights of the mother override the rights of a fetus. She makes her case
drawing on three provocative thought experiments. The first pertains to
pregnancies that result from rape. Imagine that you wake up one morning
and find that you have been kidnapped, taken to a hospital, and a famous
violinist has been attached to your circulatory system. You are told that the
violinist was ill and, in an emergency decision, you were selected to be the
host because only you had the compatible blood-type. The violinist will
recover in nine months, but will die if disconnected from you before then.
Clearly, Thomson argues, you are not morally required to continue being the
host: Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it
would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to
accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still?
This, she believes, parallels the situations where a pregnancy results from
rape and where the woman has to spend nine months in bed; thus, by
parallel reasoning, the woman would be justified in having an abortion. The
second thought experiment pertains to pregnancies in which the womans
life is at risk. Imagine that you and a baby are inside a small house; the baby
then begins to grow at such an astounding rate that you are at risk of being
crushed by it. There is no means of escaping, and the only option you have
to save your life is to kill the baby. Thomson argues that you would be
justified in killing the infant: However innocent the child may be, you do not
have to wait passively while it crushes you to death. This does not require
that I as a bystander and obligated to help the mother by killing the child,
but, Thomson argues, anyone in a position of authority, with the job of
securing peoples rights, both can and should assist the mother. The third
thought experiment involves pregnancies that result from contraception
failure. Imagine that human beings were produced from seeds that blow
around and then take root by implanting in the upholstery and carpets within
houses. If you dont want children, you need to keep the seeds from entering
your house, such as by installing window and door screens. This, then, is
what you do, but it turns out that one of the screens is defective and has a
small tear that enables a seed to enter your house and take root. Thomson
argues that in this situation you would be justified in uprooting the people-

plant since its presence in your house was unintentional and you made a
good faith effort to keep it out. It is unreasonable, she maintains, for society
to expect you to completely board up your windows and doors essentially
remaining abstinent: Someone may argue that you are responsible for its
rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could
have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows
and doors. But this wont do-for by the same token anyone can avoid a
pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never
leaving home without a (reliable!) army. Accordingly, if a set of parents have
taken all reasonable precautions against having a child, they do not simply
by virtue of their biological relationship to the child who comes into existence
have a special responsibility for it. Some of Thomsons thought experiments
may be more compelling than others. Nevertheless, the larger point behind
them is that there are many extenuating circumstances surrounding
pregnancies in which the rights and interests of the woman may outweigh
the rights of the fetus, even if we grant that the fetus has personhood.
However, conscience or refusal exceptions allow health-care workers to
refuse to perform medical procedures, including abortions, which they find
wrong on moral or religious grounds. These laws generally prevent medical
professionals from being sued or fired for refusing to participate in a
procedure. For example, a nurse at a general hospital or private practice
where the doctor provided abortions is not be required to assist in the
procedure, and under the law, would not be discriminated against for
refusing.
The first conscience objection came shortly after the Supreme Court
decision in Roe v. Wade. The 1973 Church amendment ensures that healthcare workers cannot be required to perform abortions or sterilizations, nor
can they be discriminated against for refusing.
Many abortion providers are pro-abortion rights because they have
strong moral beliefs regarding women's reproductive autonomy, because
they are concerned with the mother's health or for other reasons

SPIRITUAL
The abortion debate has heavy religious dimensions. Abortion, as
far as the Bible is concerned, is nothing less than the murder of an

innocent person which God has created, and is a source for great
spiritual bondage. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the soul is
implanted at the moment of conception. Likewise, Exodus 21 draws a clear
demarcation between the killing of a person and the killing of a fetus. Exodus
21:12, for example, reads:
Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. If it was not
premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a
place to which the killer may flee.
But Exodus 21:22 reads:
When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a
miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be
fined what the woman's husband demands, paying as much as the judges
determine.
In other words: Killing a person outside of the womb warrants the death
penalty or exile, but killing a fetus is punishable only by a fine--and that's in
a circumstance where the killing of a fetus takes place against the woman's
will. Exodus describes no penalty of any kind for women who choose to
terminate their own pregnancies, nor does any other passage in the Bible.
But the Bible certainly suggests that human life begins prior to birth. While
Rebekah is pregnant with the twins Esau and Jacob, for example, Genesis
25:22 states that "the children struggled together within her." Likewise, when
Elizabeth (pregnant with John the Baptist) meets the Virgin Mary, "the child
leaped in her womb" (Luke 1:41). One of the most frequently cited passages
in the abortion debate is Psalm 139:13, which addresses God with the
statement that "you knit me together in my mother's womb."
So the Bible's position on abortion, like its position on so many other issues,
can be described as extremely ambiguous. It treats the death of a fetus as a
non-homicide and makes no attempt to punish women who have abortions,
nor does it mention the widely-practiced abortion that was contemporaneous
to the period during which the relevant texts were written. On the other
hand, it does not suggest or imply that personhood begins at the moment of
birth. This is why the Judeo-Christian tradition has long struggled with the
question of abortion. A theological approach to abortion, if it is to be found at
all, cannot explicitly be found in the text of the Bible.