With all the stories of extreme emergency urgent last-minute difficultly-accessible late-term abortions that have been posted in the wake of Dr. Tiller's assassination, I find myself thinking about the technical aspects of abortion.
Specifically, I'm wondering why the drugs that are used to induce labour can't be used for abortion in cases where d&c (or whatever the usual technique is) isn't readily accessible. Obviously, it would be difficult, painful, and time-consuming. But in some of the cases, where the fetus is either dead in the womb* or will die upon delivery, wouldn't induced labour get the job done in a pinch? If not, what am I missing? (I've never been pregnant, you might have to explain things slowly.)
*Another technical question: if the fetus is dead in the womb, will the mother eventually go into labour anyway? If so, why? How would her body know when it's reached term?
1 comment:
If a fetus is dead in the womb, women are sometimes put into labour, especially if there's no doctor available who can perform the third-trimester procedure. It's so gruesome for the woman, though, that's it not considered good practice. But it can be done and sometimes is done.
I don't know if the woman would go into labour anyway, with a dead fetus. I think yes, as women did give birth to "stillborn" babies in the past, before fetal monitors existed. But I don't know.
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