I know people don’t really like to think about unpleasant things like miscarriages, but they happen all the time. And, unless they happen fairly early in the pregnancy, they require a medical procedure.
Most of the time, a surgical management of miscarriage will be a procedure called a D&C, or dilation and curettage. In a D&C, the woman checks into the hospital and after a pre-surgical workup, she gets either local or general anesthesia. Then the doctor dilates the cervix and scrapes away and/or vacuums the uterine lining. Afterward, she usually is discharged the same day with a prescription for pain medication and a recommendation to see her doctor for a follow-up appointment a few days or a week or two later.
Some doctors will perform a D&C in the office so that the woman does not need to check into the hospital.
A D&C may be necessary for a miscarriage that poses an immediate threat to the woman’s health, such as if a woman is hemorrhaging or if she has tissue retained in the uterus after a natural miscarriage.
Earlier miscarriages may be treated with vaccum aspiration, although this is not too common. These two procedures, D&C and vaccum aspiration, also happen to be the the most common ways to perform an abortion. A gynecologist needs to know how to perform the procedures in order to properly care for women who have miscarried even if they never provide abortions to their patients. If we don’t have doctors who know how to do these procedures then women’s health will suffer badly.
So, just keep that in mind when reading this:
The House has passed legislation that would bar teaching health centers that receive federal funds under the new health care act from using the money to teach abortion techniques.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, the sponsor of the measure, says she wants to make it “crystal clear” that taxpayer money is not being used to train health care providers to perform abortions.
The North Carolina Republican’s proposal was offered as an amendment to a bill that puts funding restrictions on a teaching program in President Barack Obama’s health care act.
The amendment passed 234-182, over the objections of some Democrats who said it would prevent medical residents from learning a basic procedure in women’s health care.
It’s not like these objections are one side of the argument. The same procedures used to perform abortions are used to treat miscarriages. That’s just a simple fact that can’t really be in dispute.
As an aside, this fact is also an important reason why any criminalization of abortion would necessarily invade the privacy and further traumatize victims of miscarriage. Since the procedures are the same for both miscarriage and abortion, treatment for miscarriage would have to be heavily documented and subject to investigation.
