Talk:Stop Forced Abortions Model Bill

Definitions of Medical Terms can be found at the National Library of Medicine

There you will find the following definitions

Causality (and) Multiple Causation-- The relating of causes to the effects they produce. Causes are termed necessary when they must always precede an effect and sufficient when they initiate or produce an effect. Any of several factors may be associated with the potential disease causation or outcome, including predisposing factors, enabling factors, precipitating factors, reinforcing factors, and risk factors.

Risk Factor: An aspect of personal behavior or lifestyle, environmental exposure, or inborn or inherited characteristic, which, on the basis of epidemiologic evidence, is known to be associated with a health-related condition considered important to prevent.

For the purposes of the bill, this could be modified to:

Risk Factor:

An aspect of personal behavior or lifestyle, environmental exposure, or inborn or inherited characteristic, which, on the basis of peer reviewed studies is significantly associated with complications associated with abortion.

Some others of interest

Precipitating Factor" Factors associated with the definitive onset of a disease, illness, accident, behavioral response, or course of action. Usually one factor is more important or more obviously recognizable than others, if several are involved, and one may often be regarded as "necessary". Examples include exposure to specific disease; amount or level of an infectious organism, drug, or noxious agent, etc.

etiology Used with diseases for causative agents including microorganisms and includes environmental and social factors and personal habits as contributing factors. It includes pathogenesis.

epidemiology Used with human and veterinary diseases for the distribution of disease, factors which cause disease, and the attributes of disease in defined populations; includes incidence, frequency, prevalence, endemic and epidemic outbreaks; also surveys and estimates of morbidity in geographic areas and in specified populations. Used also with geographical headings for the location of epidemiologic aspects of a disease. Excludes mortality for which "mortality" is used.