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Abortion
(Surgical and Medical)
For over 36 years the Founder’s Women’s
Health Center has provided safe, affordable, confidential abortions for
women in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and
Indiana. Our record of safety and patient satisfaction is unparalleled.
There are 3 steps in having an abortion.
There are 3 steps in having an abortion:
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Visit #1 -
Pre-Operative and Physician
Consultation |
Visit #2 -
Your Abortion Procedure |
Visit #3 -
Post Operative Checkup |
Visit #1 - Pre-Operative and Physician
Consultation
Pre-Operative counseling is available
Monday through Saturday mornings. The fee is $100.00 and is credited
towards the cost of your abortion with us. An appointment is necessary
for this visit. You can expect to be in the clinic 2 to 3 hours.
Whether you decide to have a surgical
abortion or a medical abortion (you must be less than 8 weeks pregnant for
this option), the State of Ohio has mandated that all women seeking an
abortion must meet with the Physician at least 24 hours prior to that abortion
taking place. Since that is the requirement, we use this visit to provide:
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All aspects of your
pre-operative consultation and signing of informed
consent papers,
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ultrasound to accurately determine weeks of pregnancy,
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draw blood
hemoglobin level and Rh factor,
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completing
paperwork,
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and your meeting with the
Physician will be done on that day.
You can expect to be in the clinic for 2-3 hours for this visit.
Women who are under the age of 18 must
have a parent or guardian cosign the medical consent. Importantly, Ohio
has a parental notification law which means that we have to notify your
parent or guardian of your intention to have an abortion. For some
patients this may present an impossible burden. When appropriate, we will
help those patients to apply for a “Court Bypass” to this State of Ohio
mandated requirement.
For women who are greater than 16 weeks 6
days pregnant we provide referrals to excellent clinics that provide
abortions through 24 weeks. Since this is a 3 day process, in most
instances your visit with us and our Doctor counts as the first day, thus
making this a 2 day process at the referral facility.
If you decide that you wish to continue
your pregnancy, we can provide referrals for pregnancy care and delivery
and/or adoption services.
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Visit #2 - Your Abortion Procedure
Surgical Abortion
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Up to 16 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy
We perform abortions Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday mornings. You can expect to be in the
clinic for 2 - 3 hours for this visit. We make appointments for this
procedure at the time of the “Pre-Operative Consultation” visit.
At this appointment, you will make your
final payment for the procedure, have the abortion performed, and then
spend 15-45 minutes in the recovery room. During the recovery
period you will be reminded of your post-operative instructions and be
given an opportunity to choose a birth control method. We have samples
of oral contraceptives and vaginal rings (NuvaRing™) for
you to begin on the first Sunday after your abortion. You will also be
given antibiotics to take home to reduce your risk of infection. If you
were more than 12 weeks pregnant you will be given pills to help reduce
your risk of bleeding. Injectable birth control Depo-Provera™ (DMPA) may
be given at this time.
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Medical Abortion (Mifeprex™, Mife, or
RU-486) - Up to 7 weeks and 6 days
Medication abortion
is a safe and effective way to end an early pregnancy (less than 56 days
as determined by ultrasound) using a combination of drugs. We use the
drug Mifeprex™ (also known as RU-486 or mifepristone) in combination with
Misoprostol (also called Cytotec™). Mifeprex™
is a progesterone-receptor antagonist, which
is fancy language meaning that it works against one of the hormones that
is necessary to maintain pregnancy.
Misoprostol causes the uterus to contract and expel the pregnancy. This
method of abortion is effective in terminating pregnancies up to 56 days
(8 weeks) from the last normal menstrual period.
Women in the clinical trials cited
several reasons for choosing medication over surgical abortion, including
avoiding surgery or anesthesia, greater privacy, a greater sense of
control, and wanting a method that is "more natural, like a miscarriage."
However, medication abortion requires more visits to the clinic and may
take several weeks to complete.
We offer medical abortion Monday through
Saturday on an appointment basis. You will make this
appointment at the time of your "Pre-Operative Consultation" visit. You will be at
Founder’s for about 1 to 2 hours to make final payment, receive your
medication, and receive medical instructions.
You must return to Founder’s Women’s
Health Center, or your Doctor, for an examination to determine
whether the abortion has been completed. If it has not been completed,
we'll talk to you about your options, which could include a surgical
procedure to end your pregnancy.
6 deaths have been reported with the use of Mifeprex™. Most of these have been due to an overwhelming and rare type
of infection. It appears that Mifeprex™ can cause a very small percentage
of women to be more susceptible to this infection. While there have been
over 550,000 abortions performed using Mifeprex™, this makes the fatality
rate approximately 1 in 100,000 abortions. This appears to make the
choice of Mifeprex™ less safe than a surgical abortion which has less than
a 1 in 500,000 chance of fatality.
At Founder’s Women’s Health Center we
provide all patients having an abortion antibiotics to reduce the risk of
infection. These infections are almost always caused by an organism that
is already present in your body, and are not due to an organism introduced
at the time of your abortion.
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Visit #3 -
Post-Operative Checkup (may
be done with your Physician)
We offer Post-Operative checkups 3-4
weeks after your abortion. Of course, you can return to your own
physician for this visit. These are short visits of about 30
min
to 1 hour total. In addition to a urine pregnancy test to make
sure that everything has returned to normal, we will provide appropriate
birth control prescriptions, and a physician exam if indicated or
desired at this visit. In order to cover the cost of the State of
Ohio mandated paperwork for this visit, there is a nominal charge for
this visit. Appointments for this visit are available on Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Saturday and can be made at the time of your abortion or
within 3 weeks thereafter
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Anesthesia Options for Abortion
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LOCAL ANESTHESIA
-- Most of our patients choose to have only local anesthesia and
oral pain medication for their procedure. Generally the discomfort
is no worse than bad menstrual cramps and only lasts a few minutes.
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N2O
-- If a patient desires, she can choose to have Nitrous Oxide
(“laughing gas”) as many have experienced in their dentist’s
office. This provides both pain and anxiety relief.
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ORAL NARCOTIC PAIN MEDICATION
AND TRANQUILIZER
-- We also offer an oral narcotic pain pill with a tranquilizer for those
patients that do not think that Tylenol or ibuprofen along with the
local anesthetic will be enough relief for them. You must have
someone drive you to and from the clinic if you choose this option
- PLEASE NOTE: NO TAXI CAB.
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INTRAVENOUS SEDATION AND N2O
-- For patients with a high degree of apprehension about the
procedure and/or pain, we offer intravenous sedation along with
nitrous oxide. This is especially valuable for very young
patients. You must have someone drive you to and from the clinic if
you choose this option - PLEASE NOTE: NO TAXI CAB. For this option you may not have anything
to eat or drink after midnight before your abortion. Also, you may
not smoke or take medications before your abortion.
Our fees for all
aspects of your care can be found on the “Fees
and Payments” page.
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Free
Pregnancy Tests
We provide free pregnancy testing Monday
through Saturday from 9:00AM to 11:30AM. Just drop off a first
morning urine sample in a clean container with a tight lid. You
may wait for the results or call before 3:00PM weekdays and 1:00PM on
Saturday. No appointment is necessary for the free pregnancy test
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Emergency
Contraceptive or “Morning After Pill” (ECP)
You must receive ECP within 72 hours of having had unprotected
intercourse. We do a pregnancy test to make sure that you are not already
pregnant. We provide you with full information, instructions, and the
pills. We provide appointments for this on weekdays from 9:00AM to 2:00PM
and on Saturdays from 9:00AM to 12:00PM.
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Annual
Gynecological Exams and Birth Control
We offer complete gynecologic checkups on
Tuesday and Wednesday at 11:00 AM. Birth control prescriptions are offered, at
physicians discretion.
We provide these visits at as low a cost as possible to assist our
patients who do not have health care coverage. Please call for an
appointment.
Sexually transmitted disease testing
(gonorrhea and Chlamydia) is also available during
these visits or at the time of abortion.
When available, we provide our patients
with free samples of birth control pills (various types and brands), or vaginal rings (NuvaRing™).
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Intrauterine
Contraception (IUDs)
If an IUD is right for you, we will help
you to obtain an IUD. This device must be inserted by our Doctor during
the first 5 days of your menstrual period and are effective contraception
for 5-10 years depending on the device chosen. Please speak with the nurse
for further information.
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Injectable
Birth Control (Depo-Provera™ or DMPA)
DMPA is available Monday through
Saturday. You must have had a documented negative Pap smear with in the
last 12 months and a negative urine pregnancy test to receive this
medication. This medication is given every 3 months thereafter. An
appointment is necessary for this visit.
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Insurance
Considerations
Founder’s Women’s Health Center does not
accept insurance as payment for your care. The most important reason for
this is that all insurance companies (3rd party) expect a
discount in order for us to be a provider. Since we try to keep the cost
of our services reasonable for all of our patients, this would mean that we
would have to charge our non-insured patients more for their procedure.
The second reason is that most health
insurance in Central Ohio does not cover abortion. For example, all
governmental insurance programs are prohibited from covering abortion
services. That means that if you work for the Federal Government, State
of Ohio, are on Medicaid, or on Medicare, your procedure will not be
covered. There are a few exceptions for rape, threat to mother’s life,
etc., and we will be glad to assist you if this applies to you.
The third reason is that most patients
want to keep their decision to have an abortion private. If we have a
contract with your insurance company, that contract requires us to submit
a claim for all services we provide you, whether or not they cover the
service. Once your paperwork is submitted to a 3rd party, we
have no control over who knows your private business or how they may use
this information. In essence, we can no longer guarantee your privacy.
If you do want to try
to recover some or all of your expense from a 3rd party, we
will provide you with documentation that you may submit to
accomplish this goal. If they mail a check to us for your care, we will
notify you and reimburse you within 5 business days for that amount.
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Financial
Need
Most of the time we have access to
funds from organizations that feel a civic and moral responsibility to
help women in extreme need.
To qualify for this
assistance, please make an appointment to come in and discuss your
situation. There is no charge for this visit. |
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