Abortion
This is a quick guide to understanding abortion
Why?
You might feel unable to cope with the thought of having a baby at this stage in your life. It’s important to consider why.
Is it to do with the father?
Is it to do with finances right now?
Is it to do with your education right now?
Does it not feel like the right time to be pregnant? Whats the root of this feeling?
Once you've discovered why you are thinking about abortion, you'll be able to able to decide what will solve that problem best - many of these problems can be solved on our help page.
How is the procedure done?
There are pill (chemical) and surgical methods to end a pregnancy, both of which we will explore below.
Pill (chemical) Abortion
This is usually performed only in the first 9 weeks of pregnancy. The abortion pill is forbidden beyond the first 9 weeks in the UK.
A common method uses two different drugs taken one after the other:
The abortion pill mifepristone is taken in an approved centre (UK law). This blocks the hormones that keep the pregnancy going.
Then misoprostol is taken 1-3 days later. This often causes the womb to expel the pregnancy within 4-6 hours.
Some countries demand a check up to ensure that the pregnancy has ended and all fetal tissue has been expelled.
Covid-19 update:
In the UK it is now possible to take both pills for the Pill Abortion at home up to 9 weeks.
This is a temporary emergency measure because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before deciding to use home abortion, it is vital to know the risks: 1 in 10 abortions at home will require hospital help (see reference [1] below).
It’s also important to consider practical things such as how you would dispose of the fetus at home.
Surgical Abortion
For in depth information on surgical abortion, please see our guide Pregnancy and Abortion: A practical guide to making decisions.
Risks
It is important to know what the risks and complications are. These will affect the decisions you make.
Risks and complications
Pain: 50 out of 100 women in America receiving medical abortion noted the pain as ‘severe’ [2] 25 out of 100 women in the UK noted that pain was 7/10 (where 10 is the worst level of pain) [3].
Infection is common in abortions affecting 1 in 10 women. Infection can cause long-term pain including pain during sex and in the pelvis from PID [4].
Serious bleeding is 8 times more common after medical (chemical Pill) abortion than the surgical method. Between one and two women in 10 haemorrhage serious blood loss.
Call for medical help
if you are using more than two sanitary pads in two hours in a row.
if you see lots of blood, feel faint, collapse or have severe pain.
Further surgery: About 1 in 10 women need further surgery after medical abortion. [1]
Premature birth: of the next baby faces an increased 27% risk after medical/ chemical abortion. These risks increase 62% after 2 or 3 abortions.
Breast cancer: New evidence suggests nearly 4 to 7 times higher risk of breast cancer after one medical abortion.
How do you feel?
Take some time to imagine what it might be like to get an abortion either by the pill or through surgery. How would you cope with the side effects or emotional regrets you may experience?
Make a note about any thoughts or feelings this brings up for you and be sure to talk about it with a trusted person.
Before consenting to home abortion look though this list and make a note if any of these statements are true for you:
You might want this baby.
You had an abortion before.
You feel pressure to abort.
You lack social support.
You have low self-esteem or feel life is out of control.
Past mental health problems.
Feeling suicidal.
You feel shame.
You are unsure how to cope with an abortion.
You had a previous late abortion.
If you agree with any of these statements, going forward with an abortion could make you more prone to anxiety, depression and suicide once an abortion has happened [5].
Figuring out what you think and feel is just the first step to making a safe decision. We offer a complete counselling pathway in our book Pregnancy and Abortion: A practical guide to making decisions.
Want to know more?
Our guide offers you:
-Medical facts about different procedures and their risks
-Space to reflect on your feelings
-A guided plan to travel from uncertainty to a confident decision.
Want to explore the other options?
References
[1] https://www.racgp.org.au/download/documents/AFP/2011/May/201105mulligan.pdf
[2] Spitz, Irving. et al., ‘Early Pregnancy Termination with Mifepristone and Misoprostol in the United States’, The New England Journal of Medicine, 338:1241-1247 (30 April 1998) online (accessed 7 August 2017).
[3] G. Penny, ‘Treatment of Pain During Medical Abortion’, Contraception, 74 (1) (July 2006), pp. 45-7.
[4] Dr Angela Lanfranchi, Prof. Ian Gentles, Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy, Complications: Abortion’s Impact on Women (The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, 2013), p. 170. Cited in A.J. Boeke, J.E. van Bergen et al., ‘The risk of pelvic inflammatory disease associated with uro-genital infection with chlamydia trachomatis; literature review’, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 149(15) (April 2005), pp. 878–84, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/15868993.
[5] B. Major, M. Applebaum, L. Beckman, et al., ‘Report of the APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion’, American Psychological Association (2008), http://www.apa. org/pi/women/programs/abortion/mental-health.pdf