I put this in GQ because I am completely not looking for another abortion debate, just the facts on this. In abortion debates, various (sometimes conflicting) stats are brought up on the risks of abortion vs. carrying a pregnancy to term. I can easily see how delivering a baby could cause problems that would lead to death, but I am not sure how an abortion is a life-threatening procedure. I realize it is very rarely fatal, but apparently some women do die. So, what goes wrong?
An abortion is a surgical procedure. Some patients die during even the most routine of surgeries from various unexpected complications.
Do they use general anesthesia for abortions?
Heavy bleeding, infection, puncture or rupture of the uterine wall, trauma to the cervix, reaction to anesthesia or pain-killers and incomplete removal of the embryo and placenta are the most common side-effects of surgical abortion. And by “most common”, I mean “not very common at all”.
General anesthesia is very rarely used. Sometimes a “twilight” aneasthesia is used which makes you sort of not-there, but not asleep. Generally, it’s just local numbing of the cervix.
Medical abortion (pills) carry similar side effects: allergic reactions, infections, incomplete abortions, and the additional side effect of making it harder to detect an ectopic pregnancy.
Not all abortions in all countries are done in hospitals. If “Dr. Nick” is using a coathanger rather than sterilized medical instruments, there is increased risk.
Violence against women is common in pregnancy and the abortion may be secondary to maternal trauma. A healthy fetus generally needs a healthy mother who might run into problems with accident, appendicitis or cocaine.
There are different types of miscarriage, and a third of pregnancies end up miscarrying, so abortions are common. Septic abortion refers to a miscarriage where infection develops, and can be very dangerous. Ectopic pregnancy is not always diagnosed in a timely fashion and this can also cause maternal death. Pregnancy and surgery both increase the risk of bloot clots and stroke and blood clots to the lung (pulmonary emboli) can also place the mother at risk.
I think abortion is one of the safest procedures there are. Last I heard, they had a 0.5% complication rate.
Some abortion types (Suction-aspiration, D&C, D&E) cut or tear the fetus into pieces.
Other methods (saline amniocentesis, urea abortion, intracardiac injections) use poisons to kill the fetus. The mother then delivers the stillborn fetus about a day later.
From what I’ve read, a lot of “back alley” abortions cause death or sickness or long-term complications because of the lack of a sterile operating room and equipment.
But other than that, I don’t think there’s a huge risk. A lot of the people who die from abortions had other things wrong with them, too - like low platelet count or immune deficiency problems (I don’t have a cite for that, sorry - I read it in a magazine about a year ago).
~Tasha
:rolleyes: Not quite what the OP was going for, I don’t think.
This is kind of what I was thinking…that death from an abortion performed by someone who knows what they’re doing with the right equipment and a sterile environment would mostly be due to pre-existing conditions or weird alergic reactions or something.
One more thing, while we’re at it: why is abortion considered a surgical procedure? The woman doesn’t get cut open, as far as I know.
There are many surgical procedures that don’t ‘cut you open’. Just offhand I can think of tonsillectomies, removal of polyps (sinus, bowel, uterine, take your pick), re-alignment of fractures under anaesthetic. Even just burning off warts is a surgical procedure of sorts, albeit a minor one.
… and ‘bits’ occassionally get left behind, which cause infections
Moderator Note
AWB If you read the OP carefully, you’ll see that he/she specifically said they don’t want an abortion debate.
Don’t deliberately try to turn this into one. 'This is General Questions.
samclem, GQ moderator
I’d say anesthesia problems, bleeding, and infection. None are common these days, but the risk is always there.
The baby does. Fetus, whatever. Burning off my warts was considered “minor surgery”, and I didn’t “get cut open”, although I did get an anesthetic: my great-aunt had a ton of abortions (performed at home by the same midwife who did her 13 deliveries, also at home) and she never got any anesthetic. Both my warts and the abortions required some recovery and had a danger of complications.
Sorry about my poor phrasing, it was 18 provoked abortions. That’s when the midwife refused to go on risking jail just because my aunt couldn’t be bothered with other methods.
From what I have read in various articles and from talking with different people, there is a higher risk of death from abortion in third-world countries, mostly due to the poor sanitary methods used to terminate pregnancy and because of the lack of training (Jose decides he can open an abortian clinic). Since a lot of it is done in private without the knowledge of family or friends, the woman gets some sort of infection, and dies. (This is the quick version of course).
In America (to stay off of the abortion debate), it was more common to have ‘back-alley’ abortions where there they people performing the abortions were untrained and unsanitary. This is (IMO) where a lot of the statistics come from saying abortion is unsafe.
I think we have to accept the fact that there are and will continue to be two totally different sets of statistics on both sides of the abortion fence.
(bolding mine)
Hasn’t the “myth” of “crack babies” been pretty much debunked already?
The fatality rate is almost 100% for patients under the age of 10.
The myth of “crack babies” was probably bigger in the US than Canada, and the dangers of cocaine in pregnancy have probably been overblown. But that hardly means that cocaine or heavy alcohol use is safe in pregancy. I’ve had two cases in my emergency room of young, pregnant women who required immediate medicine and defibrillation (respectively) for ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation respectively, who were pregnant and turned out to be using cocaine. Both babies did okay, but these heart rhythms are OFTEN fatal, and the fetus certainly isn’t getting optimal oxygenation while they are occurring. I don’t think I’m being melodramatic. I don’t know how commonly these rhythms occur. But they do.