Contraception
Volume 67, Issue 4 , Pages 287-294, April 2003

Early abortion services in the United States: a provider survey

  • Janie Benson

      Affiliations

    • Ipas, 300 Market Street, Suite 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Tel.: +1-919-960-5594; fax: +1-919-929-0258.
    • ,
  • Kathryn Andersen Clark

      Affiliations

    • Department of Maternal and Child Health and Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB# 7590, 725 Airport Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
    • ,
  • Ann Gerhardt

      Affiliations

    • National Abortion Federation, 1755 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA
    • ,
  • Lynne Randall

      Affiliations

    • CAPS (The Consortium of Planned Parenthood Abortion Providers), 21-A 9th Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33705, USA
    • ,
  • Susan Dudley

      Affiliations

    • National Abortion Federation, 1755 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA

Received 8 April 2002; received in revised form 13 September 2002; accepted 5 November 2002.

Abstract 

The objective of this study was to describe the availability of early surgical and medical abortion among members of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and to identify factors affecting the integration of early abortion services into current services. Telephone interviews were conducted with staff at 113 Planned Parenthood affiliates and independent abortion providers between February and April 2000, prior to FDA approval of mifepristone. Early abortion services were available at 59% of sites, and establishing services was less difficult than or about what was anticipated. Sites generally found it easier to begin offering early surgical abortion than early medical abortion. Physician participation was found to be critical to implementing early services. At sites where some but not all providers offered early abortion, variations in service availability resulted. Given the option of reconsidering early services, virtually all sites would make the same decision again. These data suggest that developing mentoring relationships between experienced early abortion providers/sites and those not offering early services, and training physicians and other staff, are likely to be effective approaches to expanding service availability.

Keywords:  Early abortion, Mifepristone, Methotrexate, Electric vacuum aspiration, Manual vacuum aspiration

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PII: S0010-7824(02)00512-7

doi:10.1016/S0010-7824(02)00512-7

Contraception
Volume 67, Issue 4 , Pages 287-294, April 2003

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