[What counts as an abortion?]

It is a historical coincidence that the term 'abortion' stands for the undoing of even the most early involuntary conception. Originally an abortion was an unwanted miscarriage. As a derivative, late nineteenth-century physicians introduced the expression of 'provoked abortion' for the age-old operation ending a wanted pregnancy to save a woman's life. Hence, this expression was unrelated to the even older attempts to 'induce one's period' with herbs or 'invoke a miscarriage' at a woman's own initiative. This article summarizes the twentieth-century developments leading to the use of 'abortion' mostly for the latter practices. As an unfortunate consequence, misoprostol created in the 1980s acquired the morally loaden name 'abortion pill'. Yet, it may as well be seen as the long-searched 'herb' providing sexually active women with a safe, efficient and inexpensive means to keep one's period going regardless of their eggcell being fertilized or not.