Definition of "abortion" []

• Termination of pregnancy and expulsion of an embryo or of a fetus that is incapable of survival. (noun)
• Any of various procedures that result in such termination and expulsion. Also called induced abortion. (noun)
• The premature expulsion of a nonviable fetus from the uterus; a miscarriage. (noun)
• Cessation of normal growth, especially of an organ or other body part, prior to full development or maturation. (noun)
• An aborted organism. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "When an abortion (or miscarriage) takes place by itself, without any outside aid, we call it _spontaneous abortion_."
• "American representatives explicitly came to me and asked me to remove the word abortion from our draft, he said."
• "The term abortion is tucked away somewhere in their heads in a file holding the vague lexicon of "stuff I understand that I should oppose.""