I'll not get into all the other questions you want to discuss on abortion. I can only attest to reasons a woman's life may be in jeopardy if her pregnancy is allowed to go to term.
First, I'm a nurse and have worked in OB/GYN. I have been present in the delivery room during births and have also worked in the nursery with the newborns. I have seen birth defects such as newborns born with Anencephaly and Hydrocephalus. The former means the infant was born without a skull, it survived for a very short time, no more than a couple of hours. The later, Hydrocephalus, is a condition where cerebrospinal fluid builds up in the brain cavities and the brain swells. If caught early enough, it can be treated and the infant may even survive. The child I witnessed in pediatrics did not survive. I watched the grieving mother sit day and night with this child of hers laid out on her legs with his head supported by her knees. It was a scene so heartbreaking that no woman should ever have to live through that much anguish. These anomalies would be evident on ultrasound during the early stage of pregnancy.
No pregnancy is risk free. Some conditions which might threaten the life of the mother are severe infections, heart failure and severe cases of preeclampsia, in which there is a high risk of stroke.
Cecily Kellogg, 44,is a writer who lives near Philadelphia. This was the situation she faced when she was nearly six months pregnant with twin boys in 2004 and she developed severe preeclampsia. One fetus had already died and "my liver had shut down, my kidneys had shut down and they were expecting me to start seizing at any minute,". The doctors said they had to quickly dilate her cervix and perform an abortion to save her. "I fought it," she says. "But they told me I would die — that it was either me and my son or just my son."