Ectopic Pregnancy Treatment ≠ Abortion

By Caroline Melear

In the fury of aggressive pro-choice, social media posts in response to the potential overturn of Roe vs. Wade, a myriad of untruths and half-truths are circulating Instagram stories and infographics. One such of those is pro-abortion advocates claiming that anything short of abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy will result in women dropping dead from ectopic pregnancies. The truth is a far cry from the misinformed fear-mongering.

If you are unfamiliar with the term, ectopic pregnancy is when the baby implants somewhere besides the uterus, most commonly the fallopian tube. As the fetus is only capable of growing and developing inside the uterus, this makes the pregnancy unviable, and most women do not go past 6-8 weeks in such a pregnancy, making it similar to a miscarriage.

Besides the heartbreak of pregnancy loss, ectopic pregnancy can also be extremely dangerous. When the baby implants in the fallopian tube and starts to grow, this exerts pressure on the extremely tiny tube and in the worst of cases can cause the fallopian tube to burst, leading to internal bleeding and even death. In fact, before surgical intervention as treatment was discovered in the late 1800s, more than 7 in 10 women with ectopic pregnancies died. To this day it remains the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

Thankfully due to modern medicine, there are now three leading treatments for ectopic pregnancy — expectant management (a “wait and see” approach to see if your body naturally reabsorbs the pregnancy), methotrexate treatment (a cancer drug that halts rapid division of cells), and surgical removal of the fallopian tube (most often used when the tube has already burst, or in the case of subsequent ectopic pregnancies). These treatments have reduced the maternal death rate to about 3 in 1000.

Now that we’ve covered what an ectopic pregnancy is and how to treat it, you might be wondering what this has to do with abortion. The fact of the matter is — it has nothing at all to do with abortion. Treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is not, and has never been considered, an abortion by lawmakers or leading pro-life organizations. Even Planned Parenthood distinguishes between abortion and ectopic pregnancy treatment. This makes ectopic pregnancy carveouts in pro-life legislation unnecessary as some attempt to drum up fear that without them, women will die. In fact, prescribing abortifacients to women who unknowingly have ectopic pregnancies can cause them to die, an inconvenient fact for pro-choice advocates.

Ectopic pregnancies are, tragically, always unviable. They are a form of early pregnancy loss, similar to a miscarriage. Most do not progress to the point of a heartbeat, and those that do typically cause the tube to burst, ending the pregnancy as they do so. To inflammatorily claim restrictions on abortion will amount to restrictions on the treatment of ectopic pregnancy is akin to claiming women with miscarriages will be barred from undergoing dilation and curettage (D&C) procedures. It is simply untrue and the two have no relation to one another.

Not only is the unnecessary fear-mongering detrimental to vulnerable women, but it is also an assault on the thousands of women across the country who desperately desire to meet their unborn children lost to ectopic pregnancy, myself included. If pro-choice women genuinely care about the well-being of all women everywhere, they will end the misinformation campaign meant to stir up fear and anxiety.

Photo via @liveaction