When is an Abortion Not an Abortion?

Abstract

In her article, “Selective Reduction: ‘A Soft Cover for Hard Choices’ or Another Name for Abortion?,” Radhika Rao explores the dense thicket of contradictions and conflicts related to abortion and selective reduction. Selective reduction is one name for a procedure performed to terminate one or more fetuses in a multi-fetal pregnancy in order to increase the chances that the other fetuses and the pregnant woman will emerge from the pregnancy healthy. Though Rao, in keeping with some authorities, uses the terminology selective reduction in her piece, others prefer the term multi- fetal pregnancy reduction (MFPR) as more reflective of the procedure’s goals and practice. Competing monikers for the same procedure speaks to the importance of naming when discussing the termination of fetal life. It is also a sign of the array of legal, ethical, and medical conundrums surrounding practices that end or alter the course of a pregnancy.