QuestionQUESTION: if a girl has already had an abortion and she has to go to a gynae again to check if she is pregnant or if someone wants to know if she got pregnant earlier, is it possible to find out just by physical (external or internal or both) examination?
my concern is just to find out if it is possible to determine a girl already had abortion done at any later stage in her life?
ANSWER: Manshi,
I am not sure exactly what you are asking, so more detail would be welcome. Are you wondering if you can "get away" with having an abortion so nobody can find out? I will answer as if that is the case. I don't know if you have had an abortion, or whether you are contemplating having one, or if this is on behalf of a friend.
It depends on what kind of damage an abortion does to a woman. Abortion is not safe. Most women sustain some kind of damage. It's unwise to have an abortion to try to conceal the fact you have been pregnant from someone, because as long as anybody knows about it, it can come out. You would know about it.
If you start having problems with hormones, or miscarriages, this could make it known. If you have a severe immediate complication, it will almost certainly come out. The emotional repercussions could reveal it. For example, if a woman starts defending legal abortion vigorously, depending on what she says, I may feel she has had one. I don't ASK, but I have my suspicions, especially if her stand on abortion doesn't fit her other stands on political issues. For example, if a person feels that abortion should be legal but we need more population growth, I may suspect this.
If the abortion messes up her hormones (abortion is a huge disruption of a woman's hormones), a doctor may suspect it, or if she develops breast cancer while she is in her 20's.
If the abortion damages her cervix, a doctor may suspect an abortion.
If an abortion causes serious emotional damage, it could come out. In fact, it could come out if she goes to the doctor and expresses unusual attitudes about pregnancy or whatever.
One thing that I have seen happen to a woman is that she will demonstrate to everyone that she's fine with having had an abortion, and then something happens that triggers her emotions. I call this "being blindsided". It could be a movie, or pictures in a biological textbook, or seeing a mother with a child the same age as hers would have been, or the anniversary of the abortion or the expected due date. It could be almost anything. Sometimes a woman completely loses her equanimity. She could even become suicidal. I have had that happen with women I befriended. It's the scariest thing in the world to try to stop a woman from committing suicide. I know. I've been there. Fortunately, we were able to talk her through it. But suicide is surprisingly common.
Also, a doctor may be able to tell if she's been pregnant before. This is more likely if she has an abortion than if she has a miscarriage.
And it would be unwise NOT TO TELL the doctor, because what kind of treatment he gives you could depend on that. For example, it would be wise for him to know if you do get pregnant so he can take steps to protect you from the possibility of miscarriage or extreme prematurity.
Depending on how late the abortion took place, you may have a larger uterus than you would otherwise. This can be felt.
In short, it would be unwise to believe you can keep a doctor from knowing.
If you are thinking of getting married, you really should tell your intended, because it could affect your ability to have a healthy child.
Let me know if this answers your question. Feel free to ask more if you need to. Stay safe!
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: thanks for ur response. if a girl has already had an abortion earlier, is it possible for a doctor to find this out just by physical -internal or external examination.
im not saying that she has to hide it from the doctor, but if she is made to go to any doctor and the doctor is asked to find out if this girl ever had an abortion in her life earlier, can the doctor find this out by examining the girl (the girl hasnt revealed this)
There is an ex-boifren who got me pregnant n i wasnt aware of it,,,he insisted on going with me for the abortion. little did i know tht he wanted to be there just so that he could later trouble me by threating me that he will tell my family about it. so all i want to know is can any other doctor, just by checking me, be able to reveal tht i have had abortion once in my life?
Thanks
AnswerHi, Manshi,
Ouch! That's UGLY, what your ex did to you! Sick, I would say. That's blackmail. Why did he want to blackmail you?
I should, however, tell you that it would be a violation of medical ethics for a doctor to tell anyone you had an abortion, if he was able to find out. If a doctor DID do that, you could certainly seek to have his license pulled. It's rare for a doctor to reveal what the Hippocratic Oath calls "sacred secrets", which means the details of a patient's medical history.
We are running into a problem nowadays with a new breach of medical confidentiality. It's the government's insistence on having access to medical records. Contrary to popular belief, HIPAA requires doctors to pass on information about a person's private medical records. That's why I don't go to doctors who are required to comply with HIPAA. Turns out that if a doctor doesn't have computerized records, he's not required to comply. But the danger in HIPAA is NOT that a doctor will reveal the details of a medical record to a family member, but rather that this information will be used to deny a patient insurance coverage or some kind of government benefit. In times past, this type of information was used to select people who were disabled for extermination.
I am aware of NO cases where a doctor revealed information about a prior abortion to family members. That doesn't mean it never happens, but it would be rare.
If you want to make as sure as possible, look for a doctor who has taken the Hippocratic Oath or the Geneva Convention and still believes and practices it.
