Abortion in the United States is a highly-charged issue involving significant political and ethical debate. In medical terms, the word abortion refers to any pregnancy that does not end in a live birth and therefore can refer to a miscarriage or a premature birth that does not result in a live infant. Such events are often called spontaneous abortions if they occur before 20 weeks of gestation. In common parlance, however, abortion is used to mean "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at any point in pregnancy, and this is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Sourced from Wikipedia 3/19/08