1243 E Broad Street - Columbus, OH 43205

Abortion (Surgical and Medical)

For over 33 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:

Visit #1 - Pre-Operative Counseling and Physician Consultation

Pre-Operative counseling is available Monday through Saturday mornings.  The fee is $200.00 and is credited towards the cost of your abortion with us.   An appointment is necessary for this visit.

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 that visit to provide:

1. all aspects of your Pre-Operative counseling and signing of informed consent papers,

2. ultrasound to accurately determine weeks of pregnancy,

3. draw blood hemoglobin level, Hematocrit, and Rh factor,

4. completing paperwork,

5. 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.

Visit #2 - Your Abortion Procedure

Surgical Abortion

We perform abortions through 16 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy, as determined by your ultrasound examination, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday mornings.  You can expect to be in the clinic for 21/2 - 31/2 hours for this visit.  We make appointments for this procedure at the time of the “Pre-Operative Counseling” 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, patches (Ortho-Evra™), 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.

Medical Abortion (Mifeprex™, Mife, or RU-486)

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 1^st required appointment.  You will be at Founder’s for about an hour 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 ultrasound 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.

It is important to note that within the last year approximately 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.

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 ½ hour to 1 hour total.  In addition to your pelvic exam to make sure that everything has returned to normal, we will provide appropriate birth control samples 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.

Anesthesia Options for Abortion:

Our fees for all aspects of your care can be found on the “Fees and Payments” page.

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.

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.

Annual Gynecological Exams and Birth Control

We offer complete gynecologic checkups on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday.  All birth control methods are offered.  We provide these visits at as low a cost as possible to assist our patients who do not have health care coverage.

Sexually transmitted disease testing (gonorrhea, syphilis, AIDS, Chlamydia, etc.) 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), birth control patches (Ortho-Evra™), or vaginal rings (NuvaRing™). 

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.

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.

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 (3^rd 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 3^rd 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, after all of this, you do want to try to recover some or all of your expense from a 3^rd party, we will provide you with assistance and all of the paperwork necessary 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.

Financial Need

In over 33 years, Founder’s Women’s Health Center has never denied service to any patient based on an inability to pay for that service.  Most of the time we have access to funds from organizations that feel a civic and moral responsibility to help women in extreme need.

If you feel you qualify for this assistance, please make an appointment to come in and discuss your situation.  There is no charge for this visit.