It's So Personal: Ectopic "Miscarriage"

A reader writes:

My heart goes out to the woman who had the ectopic pregnancy, whose family considers her ending of that pregnancy an abortion. But it wasn't really an abortion. Ectopic  pregnancies don't last. They aren't in the uterus. They simply don't go to term, except in extremely rare and bizarre cases. You have one choice: seek treatment immediately. Or wait for a natural miscarriage and risk major abdominal surgery, infection, infertility, and death. The baby will not live regardless.

I had an ectopic pregnancy scare in January. (It turned out to be a run-of-the mill none-ectopic miscarriage.) My doctor didn't hesitate to tell me to take a chemotherapy drug that ends the pregnancy. But she didn't use the word "abortion." No obstetrician would consider ending an ectopic pregnancy an abortion. No pro-life obstetrician would refuse to treat one and send you off to Planned Parenthood. They would consider it a medical necessity -- a treatment of a life-threatening illness.

Ectopic pregnancies are extremely common, and I've known pro-life woman who have had them and had them treated without hypocrisy. It would sicken me if a woman was that twisted about abortion rights that she would risk death to save a six-week old fetus that CANNOT be saved.

My advice to this woman: next time you have an ectopic pregnancy, tell your family that you are having a miscarriage. That's the truth. But don't expect them to feel for you. Women who have miscarriages are the great silent minority in America. It's not acknowledged. Many people don't understand why I sank into a deep depression after mine. To many pro-life advocates it's only a baby if it's aborted by man. If God aborts it, they simply don't care. If you want evidence of this, try to find one song about the loss of a child by miscarriage. There's exactly one -- a country song -- and many radio stations BANNED it because it smacked too much of abortion. The twisted irony astounds me.