Dr. Ronald Johnson:

It is a difficult question, not knowing exactly what is already in place in the Irish context. Generally, as I said in the presentation, to do surgical abortion with vacuum aspiration, most health systems have to have the required instruments and supplies to treat miscarriage and spontaneous abortion or treatment of any sort of complication that might come from it. It is just one step more to provide an induced abortion in terms of cervical dilation or something like that. The added cost should not be that much more. In many countries where there is unsafe abortion there is no question that the costs of safe abortion are much less than treating complications, but it does not perhaps apply to Ireland so much, from what we know in terms of complications.