The Difference Between Abortion & Miscarriage

Trigger alert. The following content is for mature audiences only.

"Abortion" is the premature termination of a pregnancy. Every pregnancy involves a baby. Every baby will be born naturally or surgically, living or dead.

In most contexts, an "abortion" refers to an "elective abortion" where the child is living and the mother chooses to end her child's life.

A "miscarriage" means the child has already died or a mother's body cannot be stopped from giving premature birth to a child who will not survive outside her womb.

Most people when referring to "abortion" mean "elective abortion".

The important distinguishing factor between a miscarriage and elective abortion is whether the child has died naturally or the child is intentionally killed. The difference between miscarriage and elective abortion is like the difference between a man dying naturally in the loving arms of his wife, or someone breaking into his home and shooting him. If the man is handicapped or in need of surgery, it's still not a favor to him to shoot him.

A miscarriage is a natural death that cannot be helped, while an elective abortion takes away a child's life who would otherwise keep living. Whether that child would live only until birth, until the age of three, eighteen, or until eighty-three, only the Lord knows. Just as a man shot in his home may have lived another year, or fifty years, we cannot know. We don't know what the rest of someone's life may have looked like.

Elective abortions are performed on healthy mothers and healthy children to intentionally cause death to the child by dismemberment, poison, or early starvation. In any abortion procedure, the mother is either put into preterm labor or her cervix is stretched and the child taken from her.

Put simply, when a woman's cervix is stretched and the safety and healthy environment of that child is punctured, the mother's womb is violated and her child is tortured to death. During surgical abortions, mothers can be heard moaning or screaming as their bodies shake. Many women report asking the abortionist to stop. The reality of an abortion with a woman's legs in stirrups as a man (or woman) rips her child from her is far from the sales pitch of "empowerment".

Abortionists claim they no longer scald babies to death, but they do report poisoning them during the last trimester where the mother can feel her baby thrashing in pain and trying to live. A baby may take as many as three toxic injections over thirty-six hours to stop their heart. The mother is then put into preterm labor to deliver her dead baby. This is much harder labor and a more dangerous delivery than delivery of a living child, as a living child will help position himself/herself for birth, whereas a dead baby cannot help their mother during delivery.

Third trimester abortions are performed for only elective reasons, meaning the mother is healthy and the baby is alive and could be born naturally any time. Babies during the last three months of pregnancy (third trimester) are generally considered "viable" which means the baby could live outside their mother's womb if born vaginally or by caesarian section (C-section) and cared for as any other newborn. Babies born even halfway through a pregnancy, as early as twenty-one weeks, have survived with proper medical care.

An elective abortion is not intended to save the child's life and is not necessary to save a mother's life.

In a suction, D&C, or D&E, the child is pulled apart in pieces and their head crushed while the mother's cervix is unnaturally dilated to extract the child's pieces. This would be painful for any human being to be torn apart. Babies as early as seven weeks can be seen moving away, trying to get away from the sharp instruments, and appearing to scream. But their tiny bodies are no match for the grown man (or woman) being paid to crush them.

These same procedures are used on mothers whose babies have died with the difference being that the procedure is not causing the child's death. The child has already died, so there is nothing to do to save the child. The child is also not feeling the pain of their life being taken away from them.

The abortion "pill" consists of two pills, the first cutting off the child's ability to receive nutrients from their mother. The second pill puts the mother into preterm labor to deliver her dead or dying child. Women report intense pain, a lot of blood, and thinking they are going to die. These expectant mothers are typically by themselves when they deliver their tiny infants with faces and fingers and toes, a little body fitting in the palm of their mother's hand. If the mother has not gone to the doctor and has an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, the chemical abortion can kill her. She can also die or go to the emergency room from infection, shock, hemorrhage, or other complications. Chemical or surgical abortion can cause future infertility, miscarriage, and inability to carry a child to term. Many studies link termination of a first pregnancy - both naturally or induced - as leading to breast cancer, as it interrupts the complete development of the breasts (leaving cell tissue without a purpose).

Abortionists report 1 in 25 women visit an emergency room following a chemical or surgical abortion. A third-party study shows 1 in 7 women following an abortion go to the emergency room. Most abortions - both chemical and surgical - are preformed on healthy mothers and babies.

Abortion causes a mother to go through the pain of childbirth without the joy of a child. The child never sees their mother's face who they already love. Nor, do they have a chance for parents to choose them, (There are currently 36 couples wanting to adopt for every 1 baby available.) The only experience that innocent child feels in their only life is rejection, fear, pain, and death. Most mothers admit decades later that they think of their child every day and most bereaved mothers (if not all, if they were honest) regret their decision, even if it felt like the only option for them at the time. (It is never the only option, it just feels like it.)

It is painful for mothers to lose their children, whether naturally through miscarriage or unnaturally by choosing their child's death. For those mothers who have lost their child to elective abortion, many suffer in silence and years of self-loathing. 81% of expectant mothers who lose a child through elective abortion have psychological issues following, including rage, anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, and alcohol or drug dependence.

For mothers who experience a miscarriage, they may have a burial and ceremony, prayers of their church, sympathy cards, and support of family and friends. For women who have hidden their pregnancy and chosen an abortion, she can feel very alone and isolated. She often doesn't give herself permission to grieve. She may think she doesn't deserve another child. She may not believe that God could ever forgive her.

An enraged woman who demands that she did nothing "wrong" when she aborted her baby is an unhealed woman. An elective abortion can hurt the woman's ability to bond with other children, can harm her current and future relationships with men, can cause sexual dysfunction, and she may find herself not liking children and enraged at men altogether. She may stop going to church. Her sin hurts her spiritually, and until she repents, she feels a distance between her and her God. While miscarriage is a terrible grief, an elective abortion can harden a woman's heart.

How skillfully you pursue love!

Even the most immoral of women

could learn from your ways.

Moreover, your skirts are stained

with the blood of the innocent poor,

though you did not find them breaking in.

But in spite of all these things

you say, ‘I am innocent.

Surely His anger will turn from me.’

Behold, I will judge you,

because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

(Jeremiah 2:33-35)

If you are a woman, man, or grandparent grieving the loss of a child through elective abortion, there is forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ, the only one powerful enough to wash away the stain of sin and cleanse a soul. There are groups where you can talk with others who have also experienced the pain you are going through. Please reach out today to find an abortion recovery program near you (scroll down the page for links): https://www.gotaheart.org/help-available-for-women-men

Former abortionist describes abortion procedures: https://www.choice42.com/abortion

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.” — William Wilberforce