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What is an ectopic pregnancy?

An ectopic pregnancy, also referred to as an extrauterine pregnancy, is a pregnancy in which the baby has implanted in an abnormal location outside of the uterus. In most ectopic pregnancies, the baby is inside the fallopian tube. This is called a tubal pregnancy. In tubal ectopic pregnancies, the mother presents symptoms of pelvic pain, spotting, nausea, and abnormal hCG levels.

Tubal ectopic pregnancies are often diagnosed before 7 weeks LMP, (dated from last menstrual period). By this time, the baby has usually already died, as the fallopian tubes are not equipped to sustain a growing baby. The danger with a tubal pregnancy is that fallopian tubes have lots of blood vessels (meaning lots of potential for bleeding if ruptured) and are not very elastic (meaning it cannot appropriately expand as the baby grows). If it ruptures, the mother will suffer internal bleeding which can cause maternal death if immediate treatment is not administered, usually involving surgery to remove the fallopian tube, as detailed later.

Tubal pregnancies are 90% of ectopic pregnancies, but 10% of the time, the baby implants elsewhere in the abdominal cavity (such as on the cervix, ovary, myometrium, interstitial portion of the fallopian tube, abdominal cavity wall, or within a cesarean section scar). These babies have a better chance of survival, especially if the mother has endometriosis which means an abnormal placement of endometrial tissue outside the uterus. There are many reported cases of babies surviving non-tubal ectopic pregnancies. (See links at the bottom for examples.)

Using technologies including ultrasounds, doctors can detect where in the abdomen the baby has implanted and whether the baby is still alive. Whether or not the baby is still alive, we will be able to see chorionic villi (the primitive cells that would make the placenta), maternal blood, pregnancy cells and debris, and a microscopic baby.

Current Medical Practice

As we address in the following paragraphs the current medical practices contrasted with what we believe are morally acceptable treatment practices, be sure to understand clearly our distinction between the case of a living child in an ectopic pregnancy, and the case of an already deceased child in an ectopic pregnancy.

Whether or not the baby is found alive, the current approach for medical professionals is often to immediately intervene to remove the baby. This intervention can take the form of surgery to remove the baby from the fallopian tube or to remove all or part of the fallopian tube, (salpingostomy, salpingectomy, or partial salpingectomy). It can also take the form of a drug called Methotrexate used to chemically stop pregnancy growth and kill the baby if the baby is still alive. Even if the baby is not living, other pregnancy cells, such as the chorionic villi and amnion, can be, and this cell growth needs to be halted, in some cases immediately. Chemical treatment is not as effective as surgery, but it is less invasive, and some doctors give it a try at first to see if it will dissolve the area of concern. Methotrexate can only be used if the baby is very small, and the mother is stable.

None of these surgical and chemical interventions, if performed when the baby has already died, is an abortion. It is always ethically permissible and often medically necessary to use medical intervention to remove a deceased baby from the mother. In many cases, however, no medical intervention is necessary, so doctors sometimes do not pursue either surgical or chemical intervention, but instead practice watchful waiting, also referred to medically as expectant management. Research has shown that, in patients with an ectopic pregnancy who are properly assessed and their hCG levels are dropping, roughly 50% will end and be passed naturally with no need for surgical or chemical intervention.

Our Position

Most babies have already died by the time the ectopic pregnancy is diagnosed. However, when the baby is still alive, we do not believe the above surgical and chemical interventions, which cause the death of the baby, are morally permissible. The ethical treatment in these cases is watchful waiting/expectant management and an attempted transplant of the baby to the uterus if the mother’s condition worsens.

If the doctor and patient choose to pursue expectant management and the mother is stable, she can be sent home with very strict instructions about what to watch for and what to do if things start going downhill. If she is already in an unstable condition, she should be admitted to the hospital immediately. In either case, doctors should monitor her vital signs, hCG levels, and perform regular ultrasounds.

All of the current surgical and chemical intervention options, performed while the baby is still alive, result in the death of a living baby. We believe that such actions are premature and unethical. On top of being premature, we believe that this response, even though it may not be the intent, is a sort of shrugging off the value of the life in the womb, proverbially throwing one’s hands in the air as to anything that could be done to attempt to save the baby. The oath medical professionals take to “do no harm” and their duty to attempt to save every life should require them to recognize they have a second patient in the womb and at least try to save the life of the baby through a procedure that involves surgically removing the baby from the fallopian tube and placing the baby in the uterus with the hope that he or she will reattach. Most medical professionals do not believe that successfully reimplanting the baby in the uterus is possible, but there are some who do, including a hospital in China that reports an embryo reimplantation success rate comparable to IVF!

Imagine the current medical field’s response to a situation like ectopic pregnancy, but instead of a preborn child and a mother, it was happening with a newborn child and a mother. In the thought experiment, doctors do not believe it is likely or possible that a newborn can be saved with (x) condition, a condition that also somehow threatens the mother’s life. So instead of taking any (even long shot) action attempting to save both or expanding research efforts to find ways to save the newborn child, they immediately take a course of action that they know will directly result in the newborn’s death. They would likely lose their license to practice medicine if they intentionally killed the newborn without lifting a finger to try to save him. Depending on the exact situation, they could even face criminal charges. But because our culture and laws do not recognize the life in the womb as equal in value to born humans, the medical community has disregarded ectopic life and shown a lack of interest in current research on saving ectopic babies. The current medical response is irresponsible and negligent to their oaths and duty to equally treat every human being as a patient with intrinsic value.

Ultimately, our position is that the ethical treatment of an ectopic pregnancy in the case of a baby who is still alive involves watchful waiting/expectant management or an attempted transplant of the baby into the uterus. If, during watchful waiting/expectant management, the mother’s condition worsens and there are signs of a fallopian tube about to rupture or some other medical emergency while the baby is still living, a transplant should be immediately attempted.

Important note: some ovarian cysts mimic early ectopic pregnancies. When a woman is stable under watchful waiting, sometimes, what was first thought to be an ectopic pregnancy turns out to be just a corpus luteal cyst and the fact that she has a normal intrauterine pregnancy (IUP) is then later seen. For this reason, some medical professionals advise against the use of chemical intervention of Methotrexate due to risks and misdiagnosis of both mother and baby. Misdiagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy and subsequent treatment could lead to the completely unnecessary death of a healthy baby in a normal, intrauterine pregnancy and sometimes complications for the mother.

Another note: when someone at a surgical abortion facility tells you that they are there to have an ectopic pregnancy treated, they are lying. Ectopic pregnancies are real medical conditions which need to be monitored and treated through a hospital. They cannot be treated at an abortion facility. Surgical abortion facilities are designed to dilate and scrape the inside of the uterus only going through the vaginal vault and cervix. There are no abdominal incisions. No surgery on tubes. These facilities are not set up like that because they are not in the business of true medical care. That is not their purpose. And although they can dispense pills for an intrauterine (normal) pregnancy, they cannot dispense pills for an extrauterine pregnancy. Abortion pills to contract the uterus are different from pills to treat an ectopic condition. Also, ectopic pregnancy situations are true medical emergencies which require prompt attention, she needs to go to the ER, not make an appointment for next Wednesday at Planned Parenthood.

Links for Further Research:

Innovative Ectopic Pregnancy Intrauterine Transfer Surgery: Granting a Lifeline for Life

Could This Lead to Saving Ectopic Babies?

Miracle baby was carried outside mother’s womb

I carried ectopic pregnancy for nine months without knowing

Baby is born alive after growing in mother’s abdomen for 29 weeks

The mother who risked everything to have her ectopic baby

Baby born after rare ectopic pregnancy

Surviving Fetus from a Full-Term Abdominal Pregnancy

Ectopic triplet makes medical history

Outlawing abortion is not the same thing as forced organ donation for four reasons.

1) There is a difference between ordinary and extraordinary levels of care. Donating organs to someone in need is an extraordinary level of care that should not be mandated. Simply not murdering your child is an ordinary level of care that should be mandated.

2) Children are only in the vulnerable position of needing their parents’ care because their parents created them in that vulnerable situation. When you put someone in a vulnerable position, you have a greater obligation to care for them.

3) Giving up an organ permanently is not the same thing as allowing offspring to live for nine months in the reproductive organ that was made for them to live in. In the same way that children have a right to their mother’s milk after they is born, they have a right to their mother’s uterus before they are born.

4) Not giving up an organ permanently is not the same thing as using forceps, suction devices, or chemical to actively kill a baby.

In 2011, T. Russell Hunter was asked by his church to give a presentation about how the body could get involved in different pro-life organizations, so Russell began reading various pro-life websites. At the same time, for his doctoral studies, Russell began reading about the history of the abolitionists of slavery.

In short order, it became clear that many of the very practices and strategies that the abolitionists blamed for the delay of the abolition of slavery were being practices and strategies being employed by the Pro-Life Movement. Russell became convinced of the need for an alternate movement, one that would bring God’s Word to bear on the subject and which would not compromise.

No. An abolition bill simply makes preborn children equal under law. So all the immunities, justifications, and mitigating factors considered in all other criminal cases would also be considered when charging and trying people for abortion. Each instance would be considered on a case-by-case basis based on the facts of each case. Some men and women would get charged with first degree murder. Some would get charged with third degree murder or manslaughter. Some would not be charged at all, such as those women being coerced. It all depends on the facts of the case.

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).” – Keith L. Moore BA MSc PhD DSc FIAC FRSM FAAA, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

“Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception). “Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being.” – Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2

“The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are…respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.” – Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17

“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” – Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed…. The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.” – O’Rahilly, Ronan and Muller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29.

“Every human embryologist in the world knows that the life of the new individual human being begins at fertilization. It is not belief. It is scientific fact.” C. Ward Kischer, Ph.D., Author, When Does Human Life Begin? The Final Answer, Human Embryologist, professor, University of Arizona College of Medicine.

“In that fraction of a second when the chromosomes form pairs, the sex of the new child will be determined, hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.” – Kaluger, G., and Kaluger, M., Human Development: The Span of Life, page 28-29, The C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, 1974.

“It is the penetration of the ovum by a sperm and the resulting mingling of nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the initiation of the life of a new individual.” – Clark Edward and Corliss Patten’s Human Embryology, McGraw – Hill Inc., 30

“The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are…respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.” – Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17

Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote.” – England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31

“Zygote: This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression ‘fertilized ovum’ refers to the zygote.” – Keith L. Moore BA MSc PhD DSc FIAC FRSM FAAA, T.; V. N. Persaud MD PhD DSc FRCPath (Lond.); and Mark G. Torchia MSc PhD. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1

“Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus.” – Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146

“Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus.” – Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.

“In man the term ’embryo’ is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy.” – Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160

“Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism… At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun… The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life.” – Considine, Douglas M. (ed.). Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943

“Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)… The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.” – Carlson, Bruce M. Patten’s Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3

Pro-life organizations and politicians have been the primary people standing in the way of legislation to abolish abortion in more than a dozen pro-life states. In a state like Oklahoma, if we are to criticize those preventing abortion’s abolition, there is no one to criticize but pro-lifers. They do this because worldly pragmatism is their standard, not God’s Word. One of the best things that could happen for preborn children would be for National Right to Life, SBA Pro-Life America, and Americans United for Life to fold tomorrow. This podcast episode explains the various reasons why this is the case.

If abortion is criminalized as murder, there will be far fewer abortions. Many expecting couples will not risk murder charges, and many other couples will be more sexually responsible and not make babies until they are prepared for babies.

But there certainly will be some who risk murder charges and get the abortion anyway. How do we know that? Because killing born people results in murder charges and people still do it. There will be men and women who violate the law possibly in back alley-type abortions. That is not the fault of people who believe that murder should be illegal and that all humans have rights. It is fault of people pursuing abortions in back-alleys.

You can ONLY legislate morality. Every law legislates based on someone’s view of morality. Every law is an instance of those in power establishing what citizens must not do because it is wrong. Speed limit laws are based on the immorality of risking your life and that of others. Child support laws are based on the immorality of a father leaving his family. Laws are inescapably moral. The question is not whether morality will be legislated but whose morality will be legislated? In the case of abortion, the question is will pro-child sacrifice people or anti-child sacrifice people be writing the laws?

In the atheistic worldview, we’re all just clumps of cells, including the person raising this argument. But we’re not just clumps of cells. Humans are not simply the matter that makes them up. We are eternal souls. We are image bearers. And that begins at the moment we begin to exist, which is at fertilization.

Some people will acknowledge the humanity of a human embryo but will argue that they are not worthy of protection until they have consciousness or sentience. Such people reject the notion of human rights. They believe that only a special class of humans have value. They are bigots, no different than those that perpetrated the holocaust and race-based chattel slavery.

The image of God in human beings is where we get our objective value, and we all bear the image of God equally. We thus have equal value and are equally deserving of the protection of the laws. The view that value derives from consciousness would result in those who with greater cognitive capabilities and consciousness being of more value than others. Putting human value on a sliding scale like that will always end in a atrocities.

Miscarriage and abortion are two completely different things. Heartless, psychopathic abortion supporters have worked to linguistically and legally link miscarriage and abortion so that they can scare people into believing that abortion bans outlaw miscarriage treatment. It’s no surprise that murderers are also liars. No abortion ban ever written would outlaw the removing of a deceased fetus from the uterus. OK SB1729, for instance, has language establishing that “This chapter shall not apply to…a spontaneous miscarriage.”

Don’t be a psychopath. You don’t murder people because they might grow up to be unproductive.

It largely depends on the method of birth control. Barrier methods such as condoms, diaphragms, or sponges which prevent the sperm from reaching the egg do not pose any risk of causing an abortion. All forms of hormonal birth control, on the other hand, pose a risk of causing an early abortion.

Hormonal birth control has three functions which serve to prevent pregnancy.

1) Stop ovulation from occurring.

2) Thicken cervical mucus so that sperm are not able to reach the egg.

3) Thin the lining of the uterus so that a newly conceived zygote is not able to implant in the uterus.

If 1 and 2 fail while 3 succeeds, an abortion is induced and a newly conceived human being dies. The frequency with which this occurs is not known precisely, but the total number is likely high given the widespread use of hormonal birth control.

Abolitionists do not seek to “criminalize women.” We seek to criminalize the act of abortion. That cannot be accomplished without prosecuting those who have abortions. The Pro-Life Movement, on the other hand, seeks to make sure that every abortion law contains immunity for the mother so that she cannot be prosecuted for having an abortion. This protects a woman’s right to abortion. If a woman can perform her own abortion without being prosecuted, then abortion is legal. By insisting on blanket maternal immunity, the pro-life leaders protect a woman’s right to abortion.

While the pro-life leaders have dug in their heels and opposed abolition, most pro-life people are open to abolitionist ideas. Most pro-lifers who don’t have a close connection to a pro-life leader or group are persuaded by abolitionism when they encounter it. We just have to draw clear lines between pro-life and abolition, explain the unbiblical thinking and treachery on the pro-life side, and call pro-lifers to cross the line.