Loss

They come in to the emergency room after losing half of their circulating blood volume.  Their faces are striking -- blank stares, pale skin, pain, sorrow -- all reflected in a quick glance.  They can barely talk they are so weak.  They are are 16 or 17 years old.  An older one may be 20.  They were raped.  Their last period was 8 to 12 weeks ago.  The pregnancy would make them outcast, unable to ever marry.  So they try to take care of it themselves.  But after a couple of days of bleeding, they finally arrive at the hospital in shock, with barely enough blood to get to their brain.  Hemoglobins around 4.  We do what we can.  Support the intravascular volume, transfuse.  Try to get them stable enough for a D and C.  Some need an urgent hysterectomy to save their lives, but they don't have enough blood to survive the operation. They have used up all of their clotting factors, so the bleeding only worsens.

The ones that live will never be the same.  They are scarred for life, both physically and emotionally.  It is a great loss.  And it is very sad that it has to be done this way.

There are countries where abortion is illegal.  Like in Sri Lanka.  But that doesn't mean that abortions do not take place.  They do.  They are done covertly, in non-sterile back rooms, by untrained people.  Amazingly, this also happens in the US.

This isn't birth control.  This is an attempt to maintain human dignity.  To have hope for a possible future.  For when that hope is extinguished, the will to live disappears.