Dr. Caitriona Henchion:

Medical abortion, as a method, certainly has the ability to do what the Deputy has said but one would need a lot of expert advice on how to set up the service. A certain amount of things would need to be in place. Perhaps, pharmacies might not turn out to be the best place to provide the service. We would generally feel that proper gestational assessment beforehand is an important part of providing abortion care, which might be difficult in the context of pharmacies. A primary care based service is possible but, most important, one would need to have robust and timely referral pathways. Overall, abortion is a very safe procedure and very few people will need further interventions. One needs to have the service set up so that interventions are not delayed when needed.