Search: Abortions for health reasons

First of all, they're rare. A Planned Parenthood study of why women have abortions found that a total of 7% of all aborting women reported choosing abortion because of concerns for their own health, or concerns that the baby had health or disability issues. Even later abortions are rarely done for health reasons.

Keep in mind, first of all, that these are women's self-reported reasons, not reasons that were verified by a physician's diagnosis:

Women who felt that their fetus's health had been compromised cited concerns such as a lack of prenatal care, the risk of birth defects due to advanced maternal age, a history of miscarriages, maternal cocaine use and fetal exposure to prescription medications. Concerns about personal health included chronic and life-threatening conditions such as depression, advanced maternal age and toxemia.

There is no breakdown of maternal health concerns versus fetal indications, and no breakdown of whether a physician had recommended an abortion or the woman had just chosen to check "health" on the survey box because she was thinking, "I'm too old for this."

You can really break "health of the mother" abortions down into three categories:

1. The woman self-refers for reasons that can range from trivial to the wretched nightmare of hyperemesis gravidarum. I've never seen any evidence that abortion facilities do any screening of these women to verify their perceptions that abortion would ease their health concerns.

2. The woman is referred by a doctor who is either ignorant, lying, or lazy. She might have actual health problems that he either doesn't want to deal with or doesn't know how to deal with. She might have social issues, or a prenatal diagnosis, that the doctor thinks calls for an abortion, and he'll say whatever it takes to get her to consent.

3. The woman actually has one of those rare pregnancies that actually is a danger to her life.

If there's interest in the topic, I'll expand this post. Right now it's late and I'm not feeling up to it.