Editing Abortion (section)

==Motivation==

===Personal===
[[File:AGIAbortionReasonsBarChart.png|thumb|upright=1.8|A bar chart depicting selected data from a 1998 [[Alan Guttmacher Institute|AGI]] [[meta-study]] on the reasons women stated for having an abortion]]
The reasons why women have abortions are diverse and vary across the world.<ref name="guttmacher" /><ref name="bankole98"/><ref name=Chae_2017>{{ cite journal | last1=Chae | first1=Sophia | last2=Desai | first2=Sheila | last3=Crowell | first3=Marjorie | last4=Sedgh | first4=Gilda | date=2017-10-01 | title=Reasons why women have induced abortions: a synthesis of findings from 14 countries | journal=[[Contraception (journal)|Contraception]] | volume=96 | issue=4 | pages=233–241 | doi=10.1016/j.contraception.2017.06.014 | pmid=28694165 | pmc=5957082 | quote=In most countries, the most frequently cited reasons for having an abortion were socioeconomic concerns or limiting childbearing. With some exceptions, little variation existed in the reasons given by women's sociodemographic characteristics. Data from three countries where multiple reasons could be reported in the survey showed that women often have more than one reason for having an abortion. | doi-access=free }}</ref> Some of the reasons may include an inability to afford a child, domestic violence, lack of support, feeling they are too young, and the wish to complete education or advance a career.<ref name=":5">{{cite journal | last = Stotland | first = Nada L |author-link = Nada Stotland| title = Update on Reproductive Rights and Women's Mental Health | journal = The Medical Clinics of North America | volume = 103 | issue = 4 | pages = 751–766 | date = July 2019 | pmid = 31078205 | doi = 10.1016/j.mcna.2019.02.006 | s2cid = 153307516 }}</ref> Additional reasons include not being able or willing to raise a child conceived as a result of rape or incest.<ref name="bankole98">{{cite journal | vauthors = Bankole A, Singh S, Haas T |date = September 1998 |url=http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2411798.html |title=Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries |journal=International Family Planning Perspectives |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=117–127, 152 |doi=10.2307/3038208 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060117191716/http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2411798.html |archive-date=17 January 2006 |jstor=3038208 | quote= Worldwide, the most commonly reported reason women cite for having an abortion is to postpone or stop childbearing. The second most common reason—socioeconomic concerns—includes disruption of education or employment; lack of support from the father; desire to provide schooling for existing children; and poverty, unemployment or inability to afford additional children. In addition, relationship problems with a husband or partner and a woman's perception that she is too young constitute other important categories of reasons. Women's characteristics are associated with their reasons for having an abortion: With few exceptions, older women and married women are the most likely to identify limiting childbearing as their main reason for abortion. - Conclusions - Reasons women give for why they seek abortion are often far more complex than simply not intending to become pregnant; the decision to have an abortion is usually motivated by more than one factor. }}</ref><ref name="finer2005">{{cite journal |vauthors=Finer LB, Frohwirth LF, Dauphinee LA, Singh S, Moore AM |title=Reasons U.S. women have abortions: quantitative and qualitative perspectives |journal=Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=110–118 |date=September 2005 |pmid=16150658 |doi=10.1111/j.1931-2393.2005.tb00045.x |url=http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107092446/http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.html |archive-date=7 January 2012|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Societal===
Some abortions are undergone as the result of societal pressures.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | veditors = Fried MG |title=From Privacy to Autonomy: The Conditions for Reproductive and Sexual Freedom | vauthors = Copelon R |author-link=Rhonda Copelon |encyclopedia=From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom: Transforming a Movement |date=1990 |publisher=South End Press |isbn=978-0-89608-387-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=keE5EmSKYr0C&q=abortion%20poverty%20autonomy&pg=PA38 |pages=27–43 |quote=The prevalence of economically influenced abortions and the sterilization campaigns against poor, minority, and disabled women show us that autonomy is impossible without eradication of discrimination and poverty. Racism, sexism, and poverty can make the difference between abortions that reflect choice and those reflecting bitter necessity. |access-date=29 October 2020 |archive-date=26 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126082936/https://books.google.com/books?id=keE5EmSKYr0C&q=abortion%20poverty%20autonomy&pg=PA38 |url-status=live }}</ref> These might include the preference for children of a specific sex or race, disapproval of single or early motherhood, stigmatization of people with disabilities, insufficient economic support for families, lack of access to or rejection of contraceptive methods, or efforts toward [[population control]] (such as China's [[one-child policy]]). These factors can sometimes result in compulsory abortion or [[sex-selective abortion]].<ref name="MissingWomen">{{cite journal | vauthors = Oster E |author-link=Emily Oster |title=Explaining Asia's "Missing Women": A New Look at the Data |journal=Population and Development Review |date=September 2005 |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=529–535 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4994961 |access-date=5 February 2019 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2005.00082.x |quote=Households have variously resorted to female infanticide and postnatal withholding of health care; and since the mid-1980s, when technology permitting fairly low-cost determination of the sex of fetuses became available, there has been a shift toward prenatal sex selection by means of induced abortion. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207131815/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4994961_Explaining_Asia%27s_Missing_Women_A_New_Look_at_the_Data |archive-date=7 February 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> In cultures where there is a preference for male children, some women have sex selective abortions, which have partially replaced the earlier practice of female [[infanticide]].<ref name="MissingWomen" />

=== Maternal health ===
Some abortions are performed due to concerns over [[maternal health]]. In 1990s, women cited maternal health as their main motivating factor in about a third of abortions in three of 27 countries analyzed. In seven additional countries, about 7% of abortions were maternal health related.<ref name="guttmacher" /><ref name="bankole98"/><!-- Quote = Risk to maternal health. This reason was somewhat important overall, having been cited as the main reason by 5-10% in seven countries and by 20-38% in three (Kenya, Bangladesh and India). -->

In the U.S., the Supreme Court decisions in ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' and ''[[Doe v. Bolton]]'': "ruled that the state's interest in the life of the fetus became compelling only at the point of viability, defined as the point at which the fetus can survive independently of its mother. Even after the point of viability, the state cannot favor the life of the fetus over the life or health of the pregnant woman. Under the right of privacy, physicians must be free to use their "medical judgment for the preservation of the life or health of the mother." On the same day that the Court decided Roe, it also decided Doe v. Bolton, in which the Court defined health very broadly: "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. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment."<ref>George J. Annas and Sherman Elias. "Legal and Ethical Issues in Obstetrical Practice". Chapter 54 in ''Obstetrics: Normal and Problem Pregnancies'', 6th edition. Eds. Steven G. Gabbe, et al. 2012 Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier. {{ISBN|978-1-4377-1935-2}}</ref>{{rp|1200–1201}}

====Cancer====
{{Update section|date=September 2022}}<!-- Sources here are >10 years old, and should be updated with new ones -->
The rate of cancer during pregnancy is 0.02–1%, and in many cases, cancer of the mother leads to consideration of abortion to protect the life of the mother, or in response to the potential damage that may occur to the fetus during treatment. This is particularly true for [[cervical cancer]], the most common type of which occurs in 1 of every 2,000–13,000 pregnancies, for which initiation of treatment "cannot co-exist with preservation of fetal life (unless [[neoadjuvant chemotherapy]] is chosen)". Very early stage cervical cancers (I and IIa) may be treated by [[radical hysterectomy]] and pelvic [[lymph node]] dissection, [[radiation therapy]], or both, while later stages are treated by radiotherapy. Chemotherapy may be used simultaneously. Treatment of breast cancer during pregnancy also involves fetal considerations, because [[lumpectomy]] is discouraged in favor of modified [[radical mastectomy]] unless late-term pregnancy allows follow-up radiation therapy to be administered after the birth.<ref name=Weisz>{{cite journal | vauthors = Weisz B, Schiff E, Lishner M | title = Cancer in pregnancy: maternal and fetal implications | journal = Human Reproduction Update | volume = 7 | issue = 4 | pages = 384–393 | year = 2001 | pmid = 11476351 | doi = 10.1093/humupd/7.4.384 | doi-access = free }}</ref>

Exposure to a single chemotherapy drug is estimated to cause a 7.5–17% risk of [[teratogenic]] effects on the fetus, with higher risks for multiple drug treatments. Treatment with more than 40&nbsp;[[gray (unit)|Gy]] of radiation usually causes spontaneous abortion. Exposure to much lower doses during the first trimester, especially 8 to 15 weeks of development, can cause [[intellectual disability]] or [[microcephaly]], and exposure at this or subsequent stages can cause reduced intrauterine growth and birth weight. Exposures above 0.005–0.025&nbsp;Gy cause a dose-dependent reduction in [[IQ]].<ref name=Weisz /> It is possible to greatly reduce exposure to radiation with abdominal shielding, depending on how far the area to be irradiated is from the fetus.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Mayr NA, Wen BC, Saw CB | title = Radiation therapy during pregnancy | journal = Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics of North America | volume = 25 | issue = 2 | pages = 301–321 | date = June 1998 | pmid = 9629572 | doi = 10.1016/s0889-8545(05)70006-1 }}</ref><ref name="pmid11237773">{{cite journal | vauthors = Fenig E, Mishaeli M, Kalish Y, Lishner M | title = Pregnancy and radiation | journal = Cancer Treatment Reviews | volume = 27 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–7 | date = February 2001 | pmid = 11237773 | doi = 10.1053/ctrv.2000.0193 }}</ref>

The process of birth itself may also put the mother at risk. According to Li ''et al.'', "[v]aginal delivery may result in dissemination of neoplastic cells into lymphovascular channels, haemorrhage, cervical laceration and implantation of malignant cells in the episiotomy site, while abdominal delivery may delay the initiation of non-surgical treatment."<ref name="pmid19197101">{{cite journal | vauthors = Li WW, Yau TN, Leung CW, Pong WM, Chan MY | title = Large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the uterine cervix complicating pregnancy | journal = Hong Kong Medical Journal = Xianggang Yi Xue Za Zhi | volume = 15 | issue = 1 | pages = 69–72 | date = February 2009 | pmid = 19197101 }}</ref>

===Fetal health===
[[Congenital disorders]], revealed by [[prenatal screening]], motivate some women to seek abortions.<ref name="bankole98"/> [[Health outcomes for adults born prematurely|Health outcomes of preterm births]] include a significant probability of long-term [[neurodevelopmental impairment]] before gestational age of 29 weeks, with a higher probability with decreasing gestational age.<ref name="z309">{{cite journal | last1=Sarda | first1=Sujata P. | last2=Sarri | first2=Grammati | last3=Siffel | first3=Csaba | title=Global prevalence of long-term neurodevelopmental impairment following extremely preterm birth: a systematic literature review | journal=Journal of International Medical Research | volume=49 | issue=7 | date=2021 | issn=0300-0605 | pmid=34284680 | pmc=8299900 | doi=10.1177/03000605211028026 | page=030006052110280}}</ref>

In the United States, public opinion shifted after television personality [[Sherri Finkbine]]'s was exposed to [[thalidomide]], a [[teratogen]], in her fifth month of pregnancy. Unable to obtain a legal abortion in the United States, Finkbine traveled to Sweden. From 1962 to 1965, an outbreak of [[Rubella|German measles]] left 15,000 babies with severe birth defects. In 1967, the [[American Medical Association]] publicly supported liberalization of abortion laws. A [[National Opinion Research Center]] poll in 1965 showed 73% supported abortion when the mother's life was at risk, 57% when birth defects were present and 59% for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.{{sfn|Doan|2007|p=57}}