Pregnancy Termination

It is a usually with mixed emotions that a woman will choose pregnancy termination. And pregnancy termination is pursued for many, many reasons. Sometimes, unfortunately, pregnancy termination is a path a woman takes because her pregnancy is not planned and not welcome. Sometimes pregnancy termination is chosen out of desperation because a woman feels powerless and sees no options when she suddenly finds herself pregnant and unprepared and unsupported. In these cases, if the woman were able to access more support through the system, she might not opt for a pregnancy termination. But for some women, there is no hesitation. Pregnancy termination is the choice for her and she has no problem with it.

There are, on the other hand, many women and families that, after great deliberation and heartache, decide that a pregnancy termination is necessary due to some medical diagnosis for the mother or the unborn child. In these cases, women and people in their support system have obtained as much information as possible concerning the ramifications of carrying a baby to term and/or caring for a child who has been diagnosed with some profound birth defect that is either untreatable or so dramatic that the prognosis is too terrible to live with. These are subjective issues and very personal. And women in these circumstances often need the assistance of counseling or close support from their church community to resolve the grief that can come with pregnancy termination.

There is a delicate time frame during which a woman has to get the facts and consider her decision and act on it if she chooses pregnancy termination. There are different laws regulating the window of opportunity for a woman to obtain a pregnancy termination. Sometimes, due to the ambivalence that a woman has around this issue, she finds herself right up to the wire when it is still legal to terminate a pregnancy. Beyond that point, or within just a matter of a couple of weeks, the fetus becomes and viable person and in some cases, could survive if born at that point. And the further into the pregnancy, the likelihood of trauma if the woman seeks pregnancy termination.

There is no simple path for many women who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy or a pregnancy that only holds a devastating prognosis for herself or her unborn child. Pregnancy termination is one option for these women in many places, but in many areas of the world, pregnancy termination is still illegal and a woman is in an even worse crisis. If pregnancy termination were available to her, she might very well choose it. She may desire it whole heartedly, but it is not a legal option for her. Sometimes, these women opt for an illegal pregnancy termination which can be very dangerous and not only terminates the pregnancy, but can cause the woman to die or to require surgical interventions like hysterectomy. So women living in these areas where pregnancy termination is not legally available, are in essence living under dangerous conditions and their health and well being can be compromised greatly.

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