evidence: ‘Is an Abortion Medically Necessary?’ Is Not a Question for Ethicists to Answer Abortion raises many ethical questions. Determining whether an abortion is needed to save a pregnant person’s life or health is not among them. That’s a factual question requiring medical — not ethical — judgment. Yet in the struggle to provide medically necessary care in a post-Dobbs world, some clinicians and institutions have mistakenly turned to ethics consultants and committeesto decide whether a patient’s pregnancy may be terminated.