The Question of Life and Death: The Medical Side Effects of Abortions US Government Struggles to Reach Agreement on Whether to Ban abortions, or keep them. While the United States cares about freedom and people, the government should be more concerned about the health of its nation. According to the Stedman Medical Dictionary, an abortion is “the expulsion from the uterus of an embryo or fetus before it is viable (20 weeks gestation [18 weeks after fertilization] or fetal weight less than 500 g)” (Williams and Wilkins). An abortion can be performed in many different ways, depending on when the abortion occurs and the size of the fetus. There are three main categories in which an abortion can be performed. The most common form of abortion is one that invades the uterus and kills the baby through instruments that enter the uterus through the cervix. An abortion that occurs around the fifth month of pregnancy consists of killing the unborn child by administering drugs; the mother will then be put into induced labor where she will give birth to the stillborn baby. Then, in the last three months of pregnancy, doctors will invade the uterus via abdominal surgery; during this period the umbilical cord is cut, thus cutting off the baby's oxygen supply which causes suffocation. Through all these abortions, the mother of the child is affected in one way or the other. Every miscarriage the mother undergoes increases the negative effect on her fertility and reproductive system. When babies are aborted in the first trimester, the method usually used will be menstrual extraction or suction extraction. Menstrual extraction occurs when the doctor takes a suction curette (hollow tube with...... in the center of the paper ......ults=&p=OVIC&action=2&catId=&activityType=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3011820382&source=Bookmark&u=lincclin_sjrcc&jsid=3f79c860c34ed91ba4db90b8cd375e77 "Letter from two obstetrician-gynecologists who oppose the law on the ban on partial birth abortion of 2003, March 10, 2003." Abortion: An Eternal Social and Moral Issue Sandra M. Alters 2008 ed Series. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web, February 12 2014.http://ic.galegroup.com.db23.linccweb.org/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=. view&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=true&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results= &p=OVIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3011820381&source=Bookmark&u=lincclin_sjrcc&jsid=cdf823 f18f80278f72de92dc63bb4daf