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Elliot's avatar

I realize this article was written quite a while ago But I wanted to add an additional thought. There is another argument from the "pro-choice" side which is "abortion should be acceptable in the case that the mother's life is at risk." This one in particular I find quite troubling because of the misunderstood semantics involved. On its surface, this argument seems logical, compassionate and one made from common sense. However, my rebuttal is this...

There is never, ever a case when an abortion in our accepted use and understanding of the word is necessary to save the mother from death, serious injury or illness.

The most common argument to this is "of course there are situations when an abortion is necessary" followed by personal examples or examples of women who "had to get an abortion" or the result would have been the death of the mother. As stated previously, this is where semantics and lack of understanding becomes the issue. According to the Oxford dictionary, the word abortion is defined as: the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy. According to this definition, the argument claiming the necessity of an abortion for the life and/or health of the mother would be accurate. There are medical situations where the life and/or health of the mother is in jeopardy due to the pregnancy therefore termination to the pregnancy is the best, potentially the only option. However, there is a distinct difference in the deliberate termination of a pregnancy and the deliberate termination of a human life. There are in fact instances such as ectopic pregnancy where the pregnancy must be terminated which will result in the death of the child. This is because the human is not at a point in its development where life outside the womb is possible. The point here is that the termination of the human life is not the necessary life saving procedure here, the termination of the pregnancy is. The death of the human was an unfortunate and unavoidable result of a life saving procedure. A contrasting example to this would be preeclampsia. Preeclampsia occurs after 20 weeks of pregnancy and the growing human is at a point in it's development that it's usually viable outside of the womb. In this case, termination of the pregnancy, or abortion in its most literal sense of the word, is often the necessary treatment. It is important to note that in this case, while termination of the pregnancy may be the necessary treatment to save the life of the mother, there is absolutely no necessity to terminate the human life of the baby.

The thought of a woman being told by a doctor that the only way she will live is to terminate the life of the child growing inside her truly breaks my heart. I believe many doctors may word this as "an abortion is necessary to save your life." I hope someday that people will be educated so that the response to being told that an abortion is necessary, will be "will my baby be able to live afterwards?"

Again, while the deliberate termination of a pregnancy resulting in the end of the baby's life is at times necessary to save the life of the mother, the deliberate termination of the baby's life is never a life saving, necessary medical procedure.

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