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Ethical & Physiological Concerns of Abortion

Abortion is a much-argued medical procedure that has been the subject of legal maneuvering as well as medical developments. The decision to have an abortion once raised legal issues, but this was changed with the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion. The woman contemplating an abortion, however, still must consider the consequences in terms of physiological consequences and ethical concerns, and both must be addressed when a decision is made to abort a fetus.

There are different methods of abortion, and so different consequences for the women who make use of those methods. Abortion may be induced by the use of different drugs. Aminopterin has been used for the induction of abortion in women with advanced tuberculosis or malignant disease. Even after warnings about the use of this drug were issued, it was still used as an abortifacient, including unsupervised use. Between 1956 and 1972, there were a number of publications on fetal malformations associated with the use of aminopterin, and because there were striking similarities between the nature of the malformations described, this led to their compilation as the fetal aminopterin syndrome. This consists of cranial dysplasia, broad nasal bridge, lowset ears, and limb anomalies. Another drug used as an abortifacient is methotrexate, used since 1962 and more recently combined with the prostaglandin analogue misoprostol for this same purpose. Methotrexate interferes with DNA synthesis, repair, and cellular replication. Actively proliferating tissues such as malignant cells, bone marrow, fetal and trophoblastic cells, buccal and intestinal mucosa, and cells of the urinary bladder are generally most sensitive to this effect of methotrexate ("Methotrexate for the termination of early pregnancy," 1997, 162163).

Induced abortion seems to be a relatively unintrusive procedure that has few adverse consequences when the method used is among those proven and ac...

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Ethical & Physiological Concerns of Abortion. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:04, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1683955.html