Being an abortion doctor in the United States is not the safest or most widely-lauded of occupations. Many misconceptions surround the profession, and those misconceptions are only furthered when a United States presidential candidate talks about how late-term abortion providers, specifically, "rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month" on a national stage. So how many late-term abortion doctors are left in the United States? Only a handful. Anti-abortion activists may like to promote the fiction that late-term abortions are happening willy-nilly, for self-centered, irresponsible women who just can't make up their minds. But these abortions are actually incredibly rare. According to the Guttmacher Institute, only around 1.3 percent of abortions happen after 21 weeks, and "late-term abortions" don't begin until 21 to 26 weeks, or in the third trimester. Furthermore, these procedures are almost all performed either because the mother's life or health are at risk, or because the fetus has developed such severe birth defects that it likely will not survive outside the womb.
