This change is really aimed against a small minority of players; namely, the ones who focus obsessively on their Kills to Deaths ratios and who will use Abandon Ship to throw matches or deny enemy kills.
Abandoning Ship should count as a death on your score sheet. This is not going to matter to most players, for whom the K/D ratio may as well not exist, but for those who obsess over it then being forced to stay alive and in the game, rather than killing themselves to deny another player a chance at points, might just make them commit to the game a little more and play a bigger role in matches.