Dr. Patricia Lohr:

To be clear, in the UK at the moment a nurse may not prescribe abortifacient medications. She or he may give those medications under the direction of a doctor. A doctor must prescribe the medications and then the nurse or midwife may administer those medications and manage the abortion through to aftercare. It is absolutely the case that nurses, midwives and GPs can do this safely. What they need to do is understand the medications in the same way that they would understand any other medication they would provide, including the indications, the contraindications, the side effects, the potential complications and how to manage them. It may not even be the case that a GP himself or herself would have to manage all of the complications. They could work, for example, with a hospital setting. If a woman needed a surgical evacuation for incomplete medical abortion they could work with a colleague to provide that if it was not provided in their office, although as I have said it is safe to provide early vacuum aspirations from an office-based setting.

It is normal to provide for conscientious objection no matter where one is working in obstetrics and gynaecology. In fact, it is protected within the abortion Act for the treatment itself. Individuals may enact their conscientious objection to participate in abortion treatment, but that does not absolve them from participating, for example, in the management of complications of abortions. That has been the case in other places where I have worked, where I was providing the full range of women's health care.