INTRODUCTION

Terminating pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus/embryo, resulting in or caused by its death is called an abortion. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced, in humans and other species. In the context of human pregnancies, an abortion induced to preserve the health of the gravida (pregnant female) is termed a therapeutic abortion, while an abortion induced for any other reason is termed an elective abortion. The term abortion most commonly refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy, while miscarriages are spontaneous abortions. Abortions are carried out approximately 42 million times a year worldwide. This also means that approximately 115,000 abortions are carried out daily.

Sex-selective abortion and female infanticide (also referred to as son preference or female deselection) are methods of gendercide which are practiced in areas where male children are valued over female children. Sex-selective abortion refers to the targeted abortion of female fetuses; the fetus' sex may be identified by ultrasound but also rarely by amniocentesis or another procedure. Female infanticide is the practice of selective infanticide of female infants; one common method is child abandonment. Abandoning a child of the undesired sex outside legal adoption is called sex selective abandonment. Placing a child of the undesired sex for adoption is called sex selective adoption. These practices arise in areas where cultural norms value male children over female children. Societies that practice sex selection in favor of males are quite common, especially in countries like The People's Republic of China, Korea, Taiwan, and India. In some regions of Indonesia, however people prefer female rather than male.

In 2005, 90 million women were estimated to be missing in seven Asian countries alone, apparently due to sex-selective abortion. The existence of the practice appears to be determined by culture, rather than by economic conditions, because such deviations in sex ratios do not exist in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Sex-selective abortion was rare before the late 20th century, because of the difficulty of determining the sex of the fetus before birth, but ultrasound has made such selection easier. However, prior to this, parents would alter family sex compositions through infanticide. It is believed to be responsible for at least part of the skewed birth statistics in favor of males in mainland China, India, Taiwan, and South Korea.

BODY

Over several centuries and in different cultures, there is a rich history of women helping each other to abort. Until the late 1800s, women healers in Western Europe and the U.S. provided abortions and trained other women to do so, without legal prohibitions. The State didn't prohibit abortion until the 19th century, nor did the Church lead in this new repression. In 1803, Britain first passed antiabortion laws, which then became stricter throughout the century. The U.S. followed as individual states began to outlaw abortion. By 1880, most abortions were illegal in the U.S., except those necessary to save the life of the woman. But the tradition of women's right to early abortion was rooted in U.S. society by then; abortionists continued to practice openly with public support, and juries refused to convict them.

Abortion became a crime and a sin for several reasons. A trend of humanitarian reform in the mid-19th century broadened liberal support for criminalization, because at that time abortion was a dangerous procedure done with crude methods, few antiseptics, and high mortality rates. But this alone cannot explain the attack on abortion. For instance, other risky surgical techniques were considered necessary for people's health and welfare and were not prohibited. Protecting women from the dangers of abortion was actually meant to control them and restrict them to their traditional child-bearing role. Antiabortion legislation was part of an antifeminist backlash to the growing movements for suffrage, voluntary motherhood, and other women's rights in the 19th century.

At the same time, male doctors were tightening their control over the medical profession. Doctors considered midwives, who attended births and performed abortions as part of their regular practice, a threat to their own economic and social power. The medical establishment

actively took up the antiabortion cause in the second half of the 19th century as part of its effort to eliminate midwives. Finally, with the declining birth rate among whites in the late 1800s, the U.S. government and the eugenics movement warned against the danger of ``race suicide'' and urged white, native-born women to reproduce. Budding industrial capitalism relied on women to be unpaid household workers, low-paid menial workers, reproducers, and socializers of the next generation of workers. Without legal abortion, women found it more difficult to resist the limitations of these roles.

Then, as now, making abortion illegal neither eliminated the need for abortion nor prevented its practice. In the 1890s, doctors estimated that there were two million abortions a year in the U.S. (compared with one and a half million today). Women who are determined not to carry an unwanted pregnancy have always found some way to try to abort. All too often, they have resorted to dangerous, sometimes deadly methods, such as inserting knitting needles or coat hangers into the vagina and uterus, douching with dangerous solutions like lye, or swallowing strong drugs or chemicals. The coat hanger has become a symbol of the desperation of millions of women who have risked death to end a pregnancy. When these attempts harmed them, it was hard for women to obtain medical treatment; when these methods failed, women still had to find an abortionist.

Nowadays, there are generally 2 types of method for abortion which are chemical and surgical. The two prominent types of surgical abortion which are performed in the first-trimester are suction-aspiration and dilation and curettage (D&C). Suction-aspiration is the most common surgical method used in first-trimester abortions. In a suction-aspiration abortion, the abortionist numbs the cervix and stretches it open. He then inserts a hollow plastic tube with a knife-like

edge into the uterus and suctions the babys body into a bottle. The babys body is torn apart. Since the suction is much more powerful than a home vacuum cleaner, the placenta which is well-connected to the uteruss lining is also torn away. The D&C method is similar to the suction procedure. The abortionist inserts a curette, a loop-shaped steel knife into the uterus and scrapes the wall. Scraping is concentrated where he encounters resistance. He cuts the placenta and the baby into pieces and either scrapes or suctions them out into a basin. This method generally produces considerable more bleeding than with the suction aspiration. D&C abortions also usually require anesthesia.

The latest trend in early abortions is the chemical abortion. After implantation, and still very early in the pregnancy, abortions can be induced by abortifacient drugs such as RU-486 (also known as mifepristone) and methotrexate. Both are typically used with a prostaglandin (labor-inducing drug). RU-486 has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but political maneuvering has put it on the fast track for approval.3 It is used to induce abortion on women who are five to nine weeks along in their pregnancy. Despite the fact that it has been marketed as a quick and easy form of abortion, it actually requires three trips to the clinic and has side effects that can include severe bleeding, nausea, vomiting and pain. In some cases it has caused death. Methotrexate is currently used as a prescription drug to treat lifethreatening tumorous diseases and auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. The fact that the drug acts as an abortifacient was considered an undesirable side effect. Now, abortion advocates are ready to use it as a chemical abortion method. However, patients are warned when using the drug and they should be under a doctors care and be informed of all risks, since it can have serious side effects due to its high toxicity. The side effects include nausea, diarrhea, liver damage and lung disease.

Different type of abortion techniques are used during the second-trimester due to the increased size of the infant. The most common technique used during this phase is the dilation and evacuation (D&E). The D&E abortion is similar to the D&C abortion, however the womans cervix must be dilated more widely because surgical instruments are used to remove larger pieces of the unborn child. After dilating the cervix, the doctor then inserts narrow forceps and methodically cuts the baby into pieces. In this procedure, the woman may receive intravenous fluid and an analgesic or sedative. If the baby is beyond 14 weeks, oxytocin can be administered to get the uterus to contract and shrink.

CONCLUSION Thus, abortion should be avoided at all cause because it brings about many complications towards the abortionist. The risk of breast cancer almost doubles after one abortion, and rises even further with two or more abortions. Women with one abortion also face a 2.3 relative risk of cervical cancer, compared to non-aborted women, and women with two or more abortions face a 4.92 relative risk. Similar elevated risks of ovarian and liver cancer have also been linked to single and multiple abortions. These increased cancer rates for post-aborted women are apparently linked to the unnatural disruption of the hormonal changes which accompany pregnancy and untreated cervical damage. Between 2 and 3% of all abortion patients may suffer perforation of their uterus, yet most of these injuries will remain undiagnosed and untreated unless laparoscopic visualization is performed. Such an examination may be useful when beginning an abortion malpractice suit. The risk of uterine perforation is increased for women who have previously given birth and for those who receive general anesthesia at the time of the abortion. Uterine damage may result in complications in later pregnancies and may eventually evolve into problems which require a hysterectomy, which itself may result in a number of additional complications and injuries including osteoporosis. Furthermore, women who had one, two, or more previous induced abortions are, respectively, 1.89, 2.66, or 2.03 times more likely to have a subsequent pre-term delivery, compared to women who carry to term. Prior induced abortion not only increased the risk of premature delivery, it also increased the risk of delayed delivery. Women who had one, two, or more induced abortions are, respectively, 1.89, 2.61, and 2.23 times more likely to have a post-

term delivery (over 42 weeks). Pre-term delivery increases the risk of neo-natal death and handicaps. Hence, it is best to take all necessary precaution to avoid unwanted pregnancy such as, having protected sex.