Abortion: Defining the Terms Trivia Quiz

Answer: No

Traditionally, "gestational age" is the age of the "pregnancy." It's based on the last event that can be observed: the woman's last menstrual period. But sometimes the "gestational age" is counted from conception, which is usually two weeks after the mother's last menstrual period started.

This can lead to arguments. For example, a pro-life person may display a picture of fetal development and say that the fetus is 8 weeks old (counting from conception). But a pro-choice person might argue that it's not an 8-week fetus, because in the 8th week of pregnancy, the fetus is only 6 weeks old and not nearly so well developed. See how confusing it can get?

Answer: Yes

An ectopic pregnancy is one in which the embryo attaches to some part of the woman's body outside her uterus. Both sides agree that these pregnancies are very risky for the mother, and that there is virtually no chance that the embryo can survive. Almost nobody, even among those most strongly opposed to abortion, opposes removing these embryos.

Answer: No

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Doe vs. Bolton (1973), defined the mother's "health" as it relates to abortion: "The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors -- physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age -- relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health." At the other end of the spectrum, many pro-life advocates do not want to allow for any "health" exception at all.

They want every effort made to preserve the life of the fetus, regardless of how ill the mother is, and will only allow for abortion if it's immediately necessary to prevent the mother's death.

Answer: No

Dr. Warren Hern, for example, considers abortion to be safer than a pregnancy. This is because he has concluded that statistically, the woman is less likely to end up as an "abortion mortality" statistic than as a "maternal mortality" statistic (see his medical textbook, "Abortion Practice" published in 1984).

At the other end of the spectrum are those who do not hold an abortion to be necessary to "preserve the life of the mother" unless she is in immediate danger of dying and there is no alternative that will spare the life of the fetus. That's a lot of room for disagreement!

Answer: All of these terms are used

There's yet another term. The original name for this type of procedure was "intrauterine cranial decompression."

Answer: No

There really is no agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a "clinic" in abortion practice. The term is usually used to mean an outpatient facility where abortions are done as a significant part of their practice. But what *legally* constitutes a "clinic" varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

A lot of facilities that would look like clinics, and would be called "abortion clinics" in conversation, are legally physicians' offices. And then there are the folks at the far end of the pro-life spectrum that argue that any place abortions are done is not a place of healing and therefore can't be a "clinic." And there are folks at the extreme end of the pro-choice spectrum who believe that the term "abortion clinic" is negative and limited, and prefer terms such as "women's health center."

Answer: Yes

The woman's condition is called "gestational tropoblastic disease" and the tissue in her uterus is called a "hydatidiform mole."

Answer: No

Some people believe the term should only apply to people who are born after an attempt to abort the pregnancy. Others believe it applies to anybody born after January 23, 1973 (when the decision of Roe v. Wade was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court), because they think from that point on, any fetus that makes it to term has survived a danger period during which his or her life could have been ended legally.

Others believe it should be applied only to women who are still alive after a traumatic abortion experience.

Answer: No

Pro-choice people use "PAS" to mean Post-Abortal Syndrome, the period of time immediately after the abortion when the uterus is filling with clots. Pro-life people use "PAS" to mean Post-Abortion Syndrome. This is when a woman shows the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the stressor event was an abortion.

Answer: No

It's hard to even pin down definitions on "legal" and "illegal" as they related to abortion. And this can be very important both politically (in tabulating "legal" or "illegal" abortion deaths) and personally (if an injured woman wants to sue after an abortion).

The Centers for Disease Control defined "legal abortion" as "a procedure, performed by a licensed physician or someone acting under the supervision of a licensed physician, that was intended to terminate a suspected or known intrauterine pregnancy and to produce a nonviable fetus at any gestational age." But when death certificates are coded, the coders use the ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases - 9th Edition).

The ICD-9 does not define legal or illegal abortion clearly, but leaves that to the coder's judgment. And then judges in different jurisdictions might decide that an abortion breaks the specific laws of that jurisdiction. So a woman might go to an openly operating facility, undergo what she thinks is a legal abortion, die of her complications, and there may be no agreement as to whether or not her abortion was "legal." If the doctor's medical license was suspended at the time of the abortion, the CDC will classify the abortion as "illegal." But the person coding the death certificate (if the abortion is coded at all) will note that the abortion took place in an "abortion clinic" and code it as "legal." If the woman's family sues, the doctor and/or facility may argue that they cannot legally sue because the abortion was "illegal" i.e. in many jurisdictions, one may not sue for injuries sustained while one was participating in an illegal act (one bank robber shoots another bank robber during the course of a robbery). So even what seems like the most straightforward issue of all opens a massive can of worms.