Abortion trivia: 80 facts about the much debated procedure

Abortion is the most debated procedure. In most religions is forbiden but is also allowed in most countries!

So let’s find out some specifics about abortion and its use!

1. Abortion is the ending of pregnancy due to removing an embryo or fetus before it can survive outside the uterus
2. An abortion that occurs spontaneously is also known as a miscarriage
3. When deliberate steps are taken to end a pregnancy, it is called an induced abortion
4. Or less frequently an “induced miscarriage”
5. The word abortion is often used to mean only induced abortions
6. A similar procedure after the fetus could potentially survive outside the womb is known as a “late termination of pregnancy”
7. Or less accurately as a “late term abortion”
8. When allowed by law, abortion in the developed world is one of the safest procedures in medicine
9. Modern methods use medication or surgery for abortions
10. The drug mifepristone in combination with prostaglandin appears to be as safe and effective as surgery during the first and second trimester of pregnancy
11. The most common surgical technique involves dilating the cervix and using a suction device
12. Birth control, such as the pill or intrauterine devices, can be used immediately following abortion
13. When performed legally and safely, induced abortions do not increase the risk of long-term mental or physical problems
14. In contrast, unsafe abortions cause 47,000 deaths and 5 million hospital admissions each year
15. The World Health Organization recommends safe and legal abortions be available to all women
16. Around 56 million abortions are performed each year in the world
17. With only about 45% done unsafely
18. Abortion rates changed little between 2003 and 2008
19. They decreased for at least two decades as access to family planning and birth control increased
20. As of 2008, 40% of the world’s women had access to legal abortions without limits as to reason
21. Countries that permit abortions have different limits on how late in pregnancy abortion is allowed
22. Historically abortions have been attempted using herbal medicines, sharp tools, forceful massage, or through other traditional methods
23. Abortion laws and cultural or religious views of abortions are different around the world
24. In some areas abortion is legal only in specific cases such as rape, problems with the fetus, poverty, risk to a woman’s health, or incest
25. In many places there is much debate over the moral, ethical, and legal issues of abortion
26. Those who oppose abortion often maintain that an embryo or fetus is a human with a right to life, and so they may compare abortion to murder
27. Those who favor the legality of abortion often hold that a woman has a right to make decisions about her own body
28. Others favor legal and accessible abortion as a public health measure
29. An induced abortion may be classified as therapeutic (done in response to a health condition of the women or fetus) or elective (chosen for other reasons)
30. Spontaneous abortion, also known as miscarriage, is the unintentional expulsion of an embryo or fetus before the 24th week of gestation
31. A pregnancy that ends before 37 weeks of gestation resulting in a live-born infant is known as a “premature birth” or a “preterm birth”
32. When a fetus dies in utero after viability, or during delivery, it is usually termed “stillborn”
33. Premature births and stillbirths are generally not considered to be miscarriages although usage of these terms can sometimes overlap
34. Medical abortions are those induced by abortifacient pharmaceuticals
35. Medical abortion became an alternative method of abortion with the availability of prostaglandin analogs in the 1970s and the antiprogestogen mifepristone (also known as RU-486) in the 1980s
36. Up to 15 weeks’ gestation, suction-aspiration or vacuum aspiration are the most common surgical methods of induced abortion
37. Manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) consists of removing the fetus or embryo, placenta, and membranes by suction using a manual syringe
38. Electric vacuum aspiration (EVA) uses an electric pump
39. These techniques differ in the mechanism used to apply suction, in how early in pregnancy they can be used, and in whether cervical dilation is necessary
40. In places lacking the necessary medical skill for dilation and extraction, or where preferred by practitioners, an abortion can be induced by first inducing labor and then inducing fetal demise if necessary
41. This is sometimes called “induced miscarriage”
42. This procedure may be performed from 13 weeks gestation to the third trimester
43. Although it is very uncommon in the United States
44. More than 80% of induced abortions throughout the second trimester are labor-induced abortions in Sweden and other nearby countries
45. Historically, a number of herbs reputed to possess abortifacient properties have been used in folk medicine
46. Among these are: tansy, pennyroyal, black cohosh, and the now-extinct silphium
47. The health risks of abortion depend principally upon whether the procedure is performed safely or unsafely
48. The World Health Organization defines unsafe abortions as those performed by unskilled individuals, with hazardous equipment, or in unsanitary facilities
49. Legal abortions performed in the developed world are among the safest procedures in medicine
50. In the US, the risk of maternal death from abortion is 0.7 per 100,000 procedures,
51. Making abortion about 13 times safer for women than childbirth (8.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births)
52. In the United States from 2000 to 2009, abortion had a lower mortality rate than plastic surgery
53. The risk of abortion-related mortality increases with gestational age
54. It remains lower than that of childbirth through at least 21 weeks’ gestation
55. Outpatient abortion is as safe and effective from 64 to 70 days’ gestation as it is from 57 to 63 days
56. Medical abortion is safe and effective for pregnancies earlier than 6 weeks’ gestation
57. Some purported risks of abortion are promoted primarily by anti-abortion groups
58. But the lack scientific support
59. Current evidence finds no relationship between most induced abortions and mental-health problems
60. Other than those expected for any unwanted pregnancy
61. A report by the American Psychological Association concluded that a woman’s first abortion is not a threat to mental health when carried out in the first trimester
62. Some older reviews concluded that abortion was associated with an increased risk of psychological problems
63. However, they did not use an appropriate control group
64. Women seeking to terminate their pregnancies sometimes resort to unsafe methods, particularly when access to legal abortion is restricted
65. They may attempt to self-abort or rely on another person who does not have proper medical training or access to proper facilities
66. This has a tendency to lead to severe complications, such as incomplete abortion, sepsis, hemorrhage, and damage to internal organs
67. The reasons why women have abortions are diverse and vary across the world
68. Some abortions are undergone as the result of societal pressures
69. These might include the preference for children of a specific sex or race, disapproval of single or early motherhood, stigmatization of people with disabilities, insufficient economic support for families, lack of access to or rejection of contraceptive methods, or efforts toward population control
70. These factors can sometimes result in compulsory abortion or sex-selective abortion
71. An additional factor is risk to maternal or fetal health
72. Induced abortion has long been the source of considerable debate
73. Ethical, moral, philosophical, biological, religious and legal issues surrounding abortion are related to value systems
74. Opinions of abortion may be about fetal rights, governmental authority, and women’s rights
75. Current laws pertaining to abortion are diverse
76. Religious, moral, and cultural factors continue to influence abortion laws throughout the world
77. The right to life, the right to liberty, the right to security of person, and the right to reproductive health are major issues of human rights that sometimes constitute the basis for the existence or absence of abortion laws
78. In a number of cases, abortion providers and these facilities have been subjected to various forms of violence, including murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, stalking, assault, arson, and bombing
79. Anti-abortion violence is classified by both governmental and scholarly sources as terrorism
80. Only a small fraction of those opposed to abortion commit violence