This word became a common euphemism for "abort" after 1972 when abortion which had been a crime throughout the United States became legal in all 50 states. It now is being served up here and elsewhere as the definition of abortion itself. It becomes a circular definition without a reference to life and death: Abortion is termination, and termination is abortion.

Terminate simply means end. The termination, end, cessation, halt, stop, etc. of human pregnancy is either a birth or a death of a human child at some stage between conception and fetal maturity. If every human fetus expelled from a human womb was an abortion, the human race would cease to exist.

Has the pregancy of women who have given birth to living children, completed but not terminated? patsw 05:20, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would we say that a "birth" is a termination of a pregnancy resulting in a living baby? -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Technically speaking, that would be correct.....if that helps.....DonaNobisPacem 06:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why it should result in living baby? smth. dead babies are born. Or it's not birth than? --tasc 06:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I was trying to feel out the limits of the word "termination", not to provide an authoritative definition of "birth". One must speak carefully, mustn't one? -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:52, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terminate is not a euphemism. The poor babies get terminated. Want no euphemisms, define it one of these ways:

• An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy associated with beating the baby to death.
• An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy associated with a death camp for babies.
• Abortion is killing a developing baby inside a pregnant woman. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BabyBomber (talk • contribs)

Uh, terms like "death camp for babies" seem a little POV. How about something like "abortion is the termination of a pregnancy associated with killing of the preborn child"? Hmm, "killing," although technically accurate, might also be too emotional. And yet I despise euphemisms. How about "abortion is the termination of a pregnancy associated with causing the death of the preborn child"? --Wade A. Tisthammer 18:26, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I felt the defintion was incomplete, leaving it as an "ending of the pregnancy." Thats true but so is a birth. In both cases the pregnancy ends. The difference is that one ends as an expulsion of an embryo/fetus, and the other in a birth of a baby. Only the latter is able to survive on its own. That is why I expanded the definiton to point to the former instead of the latter. I'm not sure why this is controversial, as it's pretty straight forward. Giovanni33 03:33, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the definition that you posted in inaccurate. If a viable fetus is taken from the womb, and killed in the process, what do you call it? Your definition excludes "partial-birth abortions" from being called abortions. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's also not the case that an abortion necessarily ends a pregnancy. If a woman is carrying triplets, and two are aborted, but she's still pregnant, was that not an abortion? -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's back to the negative definition: abortion is not a birth. It's something else. Something that dare not be mentioned. patsw 05:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is the fetus able to servive on it own? I still call it an abortion. It's accurate because I use the words "associated with." It would be very rare to have a fetus aborted which could survive on its own. An abortion is almost always of non-viable fetuses (or embryos). And, an abortion does end the pregnancy in respect to the fetus being aborted. A pregnancy only exists in conjuction with a growing embryo or fetus. To remove that removes the pregnancy. If the pregnancy is still there that is only because in an unusual situation there it was only an abortion of one of multiple embryos/fetuses, which is still consistent with the logic of the defintion. Sometimes a definition has rare exceptions, which your senarios include, but these can mentioned in the next sentence, such as where some but not all fetuses are aborted. Giovanni33 07:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced those situations are so rare. I've seen some sources to the effect that partial-birth abortions have occured in the thousands per year in individual clinics. Maybe that's false, I don't know, but partial-birth abortions are certainly very visible, as part of the controversy, and it would seem strange to define abortion in a way that excludes them at first. As for multiple fetuses, they're the norm in plenty of species, and I certainly don't know what kind of ratio of implanted eggs to eventual kittens, for example, is usual. Do you?

Maybe it seems that I'm harping on bizarre special cases, but I think we should at least try to come up with an entirely correct definition, before settling for a most-cases definition and a list of exceptions. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In light of your comments, its fair to remove the "before it can survive on its own," to make room for the very rare cases where it is possible, but also because it's not essential to the definition of abortion. So, I did that.

About partial birth being rare, I decided to look it up the facts [1] "There were 1.3 million abortions performed nationwide in 2000, according to the institute. About 88 percent were during the first trimester of pregnancy. Only 1 percent were performed after 21 weeks of pregnancy, when a fetus is considered having a chance of living outside the womb." And from the same site, "Long-standing, unchallenged statutes in 40 states and the District of Columbia prohibit elective abortions by any method after fetal viability. Moreover, women do not carry healthy pregnancies for seven or eight months and then abort on a whim. On those extremely rare occasions when women have third-trimester abortions, they do so because their fetuses have severe or fatal anomalies or because the pregnancy endangers their lives or health." Giovanni33 07:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Without looking past what you've related here (the source is utterly biased, but I don't care), I would point out that 1% of 1.3 million is 13,000, which is... only 35 per day, on average. You could consider that rare or not so rare, I guess. I mean, it's a tiny fraction of the total; it's 4 World Trade Centers over the year - what kind of rhetoric are you spinning, right? I don't really care whether they're rare or common though, like I said, our goal is to be 100% correct and clear.

My only issue with what's up there now is that we're claiming an abortion is the end of a pregnancy instead of a gestation. I don't buy that there are multiple pregnancies going on when multiple fetuses are in a single womb. That's not how we actually use that word, is it? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe "gestation" is so much more technical of a word that it would confuse readers, and maybe that's worth using the slightly less accurate "pregnancy" and leaving common sense to sort out the obvious details in the case of a multiple pregnancy(ies?). That doesn't sound so horrible.

The D-word... is another issue... I don't consider it either forbidden or mandatory, but I think the most concise and accurate definition would acknowledge that the essential difference between abortion and birth - the entire reason we distinguish them - the reason the word "abortion" exists as distinct from "delivery" - is that one results in a dead fetus, the other in a live infant. The problem is whether using the word "death", or one of its forms, brings in unacceptable baggage. That's not an easy question. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'm suggesting the following rewrite:

An abortion is the ending of a pregnancy before birth associated with the expulsion of an embryo or a fetus from the uterus before it can survive on its own.

This can occur spontaneously, in the form of a miscarriage, or be intentionally induced through biochemical, surgical, or other means. All mammalian pregnancies can be aborted; however, human abortion receives the most focus in biology and the mass media.

There have been various methods of inducing an abortion throughout the centuries. In the 20th century, the ethics and morality of abortion became the subject of intense political debate in many areas of the world.

I suggest changing the above (and whatever other variations we've been seeing) to:

An abortion is the ending of a gestation of an embryo or fetus in a womb, caused by or resulting in the death of the embryo or fetus. This can occur spontaneously, in the form of a miscarriage, or be intentionally induced through biochemical, surgical, or other means. All mammalian pregnancies can be aborted; however, human abortion receives the most focus in biology and the mass media.

Humans have used various methods to induce abortions throughout the centuries. In the 20th century, the ethics and morality of abortion became the subject of intense political debate in many areas of the world. Opponents of abortion consider the embryo or fetus to be fully human, morally speaking, and therefore consider abortion murder, whereas proponents of safe and legal abortion consider access to abortion to be a basic human right for women.

The definition is accurate, I think, and I think it's good to go ahead and introduce the controversy in the introduction a little bit more fully. It also has the nice feature that those who want to edit war about particular words can just alternate the phrase "caused by or sesulting in the death of the embryo or fetus" with the phrase "before birth" in the first sentence without really changing the meaning!

Whaddya think? -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I could accept that version, GTBacchus, or a similar version beginning with:

An abortion is the expulsion or removal of an embryo or fetus from a woman's womb, caused by or resulting in the death of the embryo or fetus.

I do object to any attempts to try to hide the fact that this thing inside a woman — whether it's a blob or a piece of tissue or a human child — dies. What this thing actually is is a POV; what happens to it is a medical fact. And since a dog can die, a cell can die, and bacteria can die, it's not implying that it's a human child to use that word. I also object to any attempt to hide the fact that abortions take place past the stage where the fetus could survive. Yes, it's an uncomfortable fact, but Wikipedia is not meant to hide uncomfortable facts. AnnH ♫ 09:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'd have "Opponents of abortion consider the embryo or fetus to be fully human", without the "morally speaking". I can't see what that adds, or even what it means. I consider Str1977 and GTBacchus and Giovanni33 all to be fully human. I would consider killing any of them to be "murder, morally speaking" (though even in that case, the "morally speaking" is unnecessary), but I would never say that I consider them to be "fully human, morally speaking". AnnH ♫ 09:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I don't consider a zygote to be fully human, developmentally speaking, and I don't think that's controversial. On the other hand, you're right that it's a awkward locution. Maybe something like "...consider the fetus to be a human with moral rights"? -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unnecessary, but acceptable, in my view. If I consider you to be a human being, then I consider you to have moral rights. By the way, I know Americans say "have gotten" instead of "have got", but I presume the "humans have usen" is a typo?!AnnH ♫ 10:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting... "use, used, have usen". Maybe it'll catch on. I see your point about "human" being equivalent with "fully human, with moral rights, and a soul"... for you. We can't assume all our readers believe that. It's entirely possible to consider an embryo "pretty much" human, but not deem it to have moral rights until a certain stage of development. -GTBacchus^(talk) 10:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note in support of AnnH's rv and edit summary: "Death" was result of consensus, had been there for months. Still being discussed. No consensus to change it. In fact it had been there (possibly with interruptions) for at least five years and three months. It's right at the top of the article back in December 2001 (unfortunately there are no earlier archived pages). It read:

Abortion, in its most commonly used sense, refers to the intentional early termination of pregnancy, resulting in the death of the embryo or fetus.

AvB ÷ talk 10:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The death of the conceptus always accompanies an abortion. The death is not really what is controversial at all - that is a very simple medical/biological fact. Our feelings associated with this death is where the controversy lies. Those feelings are why spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) is largely seen as a sad and unfortunate occurrence, and why induced abortion causes so much fuss. Its the moral significance we attach to the death that is controversial - not the death itself. This opening definition ought not skirt the basic and noncontroversial reality (the biological death of the conceptus) that underlies why miscarriage brings sadness and induced abortion causes controversy. But this opening definition should not discuss any such feelings, as the opening definition that has been in place for a long time has properly avoided doing! Good 12:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent)
Regarding "moral rights", perhaps it would be an idea to refer to personhood and/or add "see also abortion debate"?AvB ÷ talk 10:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow - I didn't realize that article existed. Yikes. The lead should link to abortion debate, somehow. -GTBacchus^(talk) 10:27, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Darn, you linked the article before I did, exactly as I was considering. :-) -Kyd 23:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The first sentence has been stable and consensed upon in the past. I understand that people disagree with parts of it, and we have tried to discuss them. However, we never reached consensus. If editors keep changing the stable sentence without approval, it will sure keep being reverted. I feel that this applies to a number of other parts of the article as well. If you are a user, and you keep inserting your own version, without discussion or approval on the talk page, you are boardering on the edge of a POV warrior. I urge everyone to come to the talk page before making controversial and drastic changes to stable content in order to avoid edit warring. --Andrew c 00:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To get things going, I feel pro-lick's version misses what, in my opinion, is the most important part of abortion: the termination of a pregnancy (or part of a pregnancy in the rare instance of aborting twins). I am not happy with the 'death' part of the old version, as mentioned above, but I am willing to let it go because I simply cannot think of any other wording that isn't a euphamism, and as a compromise to my fellow editors who feel it is important to include that fact.--Andrew c 00:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the trouble with being ginger about language is that the single only reason that "abortion" is a different concept and a different word from "delivery" is that it involves death. Without that minor detail, there's no difference between an abortion and a delivery. If you're trying to perform an abortion, and the fetus somehow survives, then whoops, it was a delivery. If you're trying to perform a delivery, but the fetus somehow dies before you get it out, then whoops, it was an abortion. In order to soft-pedal that, we need a better reason than I've seen. Our top priority here is to be an encyclopedia, not to help spin language for one side or the other of any conflict. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]