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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2001)
; d;iy, February 15 ’» Thursday, February 15, 2001 science ! ^ i « 1 Page 3A -«h igdt THE BATTALION , Tk fads ofle and cMces Beyond the debate of spirituality and aggression lie the facts about abortion and its effects By Stuart ROTson The Battalion For more than 50 years, a war of words has been might on the battleground of America’s dinner tables, rospitals, churches and legislatures with a voracity that :an be caused only by a clash of the ideological beliefs held closest to people's hearts. The name of that war is abortion. Science has no definition that determines when “life” begins. No experimental method can give conclusive res ults that declare the difference between human and pre- luman. Defining life is a quandary that is instead left to he personal beliefs of each individual. But when discussing abortion, the question of when life begins for the child is not the only issue that is con sidered. The methodology of the procedure, the potential isks and potential benefits are imperative pieces of the uz/.le that displays the full picture of abortion. □ Two techniques are used to end a preg- tancy. Surgical abortions are performed by physically removing the fetus with tools, { nd medical abortions use drugs to induce 1 he uterus to shed the fetus. Dr. Elizabeth C. Berigan, chief of the In- |emal Medicine Department of Scott and White ospital and associate clinical professor for [Texas A&M’s Health Science Center, said near ly all abortions performed in the United States use ■he surgical method because medicines are heavily regulated. There are three forms of surgical methods. Ac cording to information from the Planned Parenthood .Federation of America (PPFA), all prospective abor tion recipients are required to have psychiatric coun- : seling and a physical exam before an abortion may even be considered. Manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) empties the uterus Ivith suction from a manual syringe after the cervix has |been stretched with dilators. This method is used during 1/ery early abortions up to 10 weeks after the woman’s last period. Dilation and silction curettage (D&C) uses a dilator to Ktretch the cervix open and then a tube attached to a suc tion device empties the uterus. A curette, a narrow metal loop, is then used to scrape the inside of the uterus to in ure that no fetal material is left. The overall procedure is a little like a Pap smear, here the woman puts her legs in the stirrups on the able,” Berigan said. “She then usually receives cervical blocks (painkillers), anti-inflammatories and maybe vel lum to relax — depending on how she is doing. “The suction device uses a tube that I can only relate o an enlarged drinking straw. It even has a bendable part hat helps the doctor not damage the wall of the uterus. Eighty-eight percent of abortions are done within the .. -r—-irst trimester, and 50 percent of those are during the first job-seeb we eks.... There is usually just a white fluffy gesta tional sack the size of a quarter and menstrual fluid. There |iisually are not any formed body parts.” D&C is usually performed six weeks to 14 weeks af- :er the woman’s last period, Berigan said. Dilation and evacuation (D&E) is a method that uses a special dilator to slowly stretch the cervix open « Eighty-eight percent of abor tions are done within the first trimester, and SO percent of those are during the first eight weeks.... There is usually just a white fluffy gestational sack the size of a quarter and menstrual fluid” — Dr. Elizabeth C. Berigan chief of the Internal Medicine Department of Scott and White Hospital overnight, allowing the fetus to be removed with suction devices, medical instruments such as forceps and a curette. A local anesthetic is injected near the cervix and antibiotics are usually given to prevent infections. This method is used for all abortions occurring after 14 weeks because the fetus is typically too large to be re moved using conventional suction means. According to the PPFA, the MVA and D&C take about 10 minutes. A D&E takes between 10 and 20 minutes. The abortion recipient is then required to rest for about an hour before she is allowed to leave. This allows the doctors time to determine if any immediate complications arose from the abortion procedure. According to information from the PPFA, one out of every 500 surgical abortions fails to completely end the pregnancy. This usually means that some fetal material is left in the uterus. “It is much like an incomplete miscarriage,” Berigan .ING/Thf. Battai ’ Turner said, itij till use many ne informal' careers and etj tere luation Wei cements, v college wi HT P.M said. ‘There will not be any more development in the tis sue that is left over, but any tissue that is left over is like ly to be a source of infection.” Medical abortions may be performed up to 49 days af ter the woman’s last period. The woman is first given a drug, either via injection or in tablet form, that ends the pregnancy by making the lining of the uterus break down. Another drug is administered to make the uterus con tract and empty. According to the PPFA, this process can take from one to 14 days to complete and is 90-95 percent effective. If it is ineffective, surgical abortion must be used to end the pregnancy. Effectively, this method simulates an early miscarriage and may cause the woman to experience strong cramps, nausea, diarrhea, and excessive bleeding resulting from the shedding of the uterus lining. According to Berigan, information from PPFA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the primary risk of an abortion is potential infections caused by bacteria and viruses introduced during the abortion. The percentage of abortion recipients who get in fections after the procedure is highly debated. Research printed in peer review journals estimates these rates at anywhere from .5 to 17 percent‘of pa tients. The PPFA and CDC estimate that approximate ly 1 percent of abortions in 1999 resulted in infection. “Infections from abortions are dangerous in pie same ways that STDs and infections gotten from child birth are,” Berigan said. “If they are severe enough, they may lead to complications ranging from inflapi- mation, a reduced chance to be able to conceive another child, to death.” According to the CDC, one in 100,000 abortions will end in death of the mother. Do alioilioiis cause tet cancer? Although it has been the subject of extensive re search, researchers still do not know if there is a corre lation between breast cancer and abortions. Research on the correlation has been plagued by a wide variety of results rartging from no correlation to a 90 percent increase in risk (found by a study pub lished in the Journal of the ; National Cancer Insti tute). A recent study pub lished in the August 2000 Journal of the Amer ican Medical Association (JAMA) found inconclusive results. Berigan said there are situations in which the mother may choose to have an abortion because of dangerous health risks associated with carrying the fetus to terhi. “These are very rare and almost never seen,” she said. “But when they are, it is usually because of a severe abnormality of the fetus or a severe health condition of the mother.” Abnormalities of the fetus may include conditions such as hydrocephelus, where the child’s skull is filled with liquid causing the skull to enlarge, or encepjielus, which causes the child’s skull to be extremely enlarged but empty. “In most of these cases, the fetus isn’t going to be vi able whether it is carried to term or not,” Berigan said. Health conditions of the mother such as deteriora tion of the cardiovascular system and advanced dj4- betes also may endanger the mother’s life. >2 According to a 1999 report published by the AM4, the fetus’s brain centers that are necessary for pain per ception develop early in the second trimester. Howev er, the ability to feel pain throughout the fetus’s^b^y develops as the fetus ages. Researchers determined the development of neiif^l centers by mapping the change in blood flow through the brain. They determined (by means of invasive surgery}, that the fetus can sense pain inside, the torso of its bodjy at 18 weeks, and can feel pain on the exterior of its body as early as 24 weeks. According to information from the PPFA, anesthei- ics for the fetus are rarely used in abortions. However, residual effects from local anesthetics ap plied near the cervix may numb the fetus to a degree? ULTRASOUND AND GRAPHIC BABY COURTES 'A /TheBattalion Post-abortion stress syndrome (PASS), or long-term clinical depression after abortion, is a highly debated issue among the pro-choice and pro-life camps. Pro-choice organizations such as PPFA say that a sense of relief after an abortion is more common than depression, but pro-life organizations say that PASS af fects as many as 80 percent of abortion recipients. According to a study published in the August 200b issue of JAMA, approximately 80 percent of women studied showed no signs of depression two years aft^r their abortions and only 1 percent reported having PASS symptoms. The study showed that dissatisfaction among the women about their decisions to have abortions tended to increase as time continued. Nineteen percent of the women said that they regretted their decisions. ^
