Dr. Patricia Lohr:

I will take the latter one first. We do advise that women stay because the most likely time to experience a complication is in the first several hours or 24 hours after an abortion. We talk to women about how it is preferable to stay but the reality is that most women cannot afford to stay, and it may not only be for financial reasons. They cannot afford to be away for reasons of secrecy and stigma, to be unaccounted for.

The Senator also asked why so many women in Britain choose the medical option. The reasons are very varied. Some women perceive it as being safer because it is a non-interventional method of abortion. Some women choose it because it is readily available. It is offered in a number of locations. When women have an unwanted pregnancy, they would like to be not pregnant as quickly as they can and if they can avail of a medical abortion more quickly than a surgical abortion, they may opt for that in order to achieve the abortion more quickly.

However, as I said previously, there are aspects of the process and the characteristic of the method that also matter. It is non-surgical so they do not have to have an anaesthetic. They can pass the pregnancy at home or be with their partner. They just prefer that option to having to come into a clinic and have an interventional procedure which may be associated with an anaesthetic that they also do not want to be exposed to.