Roughly 10 percent to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, and one in 50 pregnancies will be diagnosed as ectopic pregnancies, a potentially fatal condition in which an embryo develops outside the mother’s uterus.
Both miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy can be physically and emotionally painful. For Christians who believe human life begins at conception, losing a baby even early in pregnancy is a singular kind of grief. There are ministries for families suffering miscarriages, and many churches hold funerals or memorial services for babies who have died before they were born.
But pregnancy losses aren’t merely a spiritual matter. They also have a clinical term: abortion. Miscarriages are described in medical language as “spontaneous abortions.”
That can lead to confusion as Americans debate abortion policy after a leaked draft opinion from the US Supreme Court signaled the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade. Outside of a medical context, “abortion” is used colloquially to describe “elective abortion,” or the intentional killing of a healthy and growing preborn child.
In the aftermath of the leaked opinion, some abortion advocates have suggested that new abortion restrictions enacted could endanger health care for pregnant women. They worry that pregnancies that end through miscarriages or as a result of ectopic pregnancies will be wrapped into the new state laws.
But many Christian ob-gyns, including those at major antiabortion institutions, such as the Charlotte Lozier Institute and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) say restrictions on elective abortions have nothing to do with miscarriage care.
There are roughly 50,000 practicing ob-gyns in the United States. Less than a quarter of them perform abortions currently. On the other hand, treating both ectopic pregnancies and early miscarriages is a routine, though tragic, part of their practice, according to Dr. Donna Harrison, a Christian ob-gyn and CEO of AAPLOG. Both Harrison and Dr. Ingrid Skop, also a Christian ob-gyn and the director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, said abortion restrictions would have no effect on ectopic pregnancy removal or miscarriage care be- cause those situations are different, both medically and morally, from elective abortion.
But—in keeping with theChristian ethic of treating the sick and vulnerable with care and dignity— they also believe that a woman facing the natural death of her baby needs compassionate and careful medical care. They insist that care will continue even under legal restrictions on elective abortion.