Question about what is abortion and what isn't

[Nikia]

I have been thinking about this lately as I am pregnant, had a miscarriage less than a year ago, and have participated in an online miscarriage support group.
When I miscarried at 11 weeks, my body expelled some of "the products of conceptions". I was in the ER bleeding heavily and evidently still had some parts attatched. The ER doctor strongly recommended that I have D&C out of concern for my health and future fertility. She had already called in a specialist to do the procedure. In talking to the specialist, I made some comment about what if I had an early ultrasound and discovered that the baby was not growing into a normal baby and there was no heart beat. He said that would have been up to me, but that he didn't perform "abortions". Some women on the online support group had that situation and elected to have D&C. Did they have an "abortion"? Did I have an "abortion".
Some women lose their pregnancies later. Some women have emergency caesarians because of health reasons when they are preterm. Some of those babies die. I know other babies, some of who are now adult people who I know, survive such emergency caesarians. When a woman who had an emergency caesarian at 26 weeks lost her baby, was that an abortion?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. There are two kinds of procedures

When a pregnancy needs to be terminated, for whatever reason, it's an abortion. That is, it's a man-made intervention in the natural process, for whatever reasons. When the pregnancy does it on its own, it's called a miscarriage.

There are two kinds of procedures that are done in situations like this, and the doctor who said "She didn't do abortions" was fooling herself and misleading you. What she was really saying was that she wouldn't perform an abortion if it were a healthy pregnancy and the patient simply wanted to terminate it. When the pregnancy goes wrong, as yours did, it is imperative to clean out the uterus after the miscarriage, even if there is no discernible debris remaining, simply to strip the uterine walls and let the uterus begin to prepare itself for the next menstrual cycle.

That process, when done where no pregnancy is involved - say, heavy bleeding or early signs of endometriosis - is called a D&C, or Dilation and Curretage.

When the same process is done, the scraping out and emptying of the uterine lining, when a pregnancy was involved, is called a D&E - Dilation and Evacuation.

I hope this clears up your very sensible questions.

[HockeyMom]

4. Ectopic pregnancy

that is what I had. What would this doctor do about that? Not perform an "abortion" and let the embryo rupture the woman's tube, cause severe internal bleeding, and potentially death? There are no ifs ands or buts about it. That baby is never going to survive weeks, let alone anywhere near full term. Mine ruptured at only 5 weeks.

So she would let the woman die in order not to perform an abortion?

[Warpy]

2. Medically speaking, an abortion is the termination of a pregnancy

A spontaneous abortion is what we call a miscarriage. A D&C follow up procedure has nothing to do with abortion, the pregnancy has already been terminated by nature. It is to make certain the entire placenta has been expelled from the uterus.

A therapeutic abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by medical intervention.

Notice that the two terms apply to a pregnancy, not the expulsion of a fertilized ovum by any means.

[iverglas]

3. your specific question

I made some comment about what if I had an early ultrasound and discovered that the baby was not growing into a normal baby and there was no heart beat.

If a fetus has no heartbeat, it is dead tissue.

Performing a surgical procedure to remove dead tissue from a woman's uterus IS NOT an abortion. It is not an abortion any more than removing a septic appendix is an abortion.

A woman whose fetus is dead is not pregnant. The pregnancy cannot be terminated, because there is no pregnancy.

A dead fetus is a potential threat to a woman's life. If a spontaneous abortion does not occur withing a tolerable time (or, as in your case, is not complete), it is essential that the remaining products of conception be removed, to prevent infection.

"Not growing into a normal baby" is a completely different question, and can obviously cover a whole host of very different things. It could include a fetus with defects that are not compatible with life -- a fetus that simply will not survive more than hours, at most, outside the uterus even at full term. It could include a fetus with a heart defect that has been detected and can be corrected by surgery after birth. And oodles of things elsewhere on the scale.

A doctor who chose not to perform elective abortion, but who refused to terminate a pregnancy in the case of, say, a fetus with severe hydrocephalus would just be an asshole. The fetus would have no chance of life. The fetus could not be delivered vaginally, and thus a Caesarian section would be required -- i.e. cutting the woman open, something many women choose to avoid, for various reasons. Terminating the pregnancy by the now banned-in-the-US "partial birth abortion" procedure -- actually the D&X procedure, in which the size of the fetal head is reduced before completing vaginal delivery -- is the only rational choice to be made by a doctor with a gram of professional ethics.