CONTEXT California's Reproductive Health Privacy Act, which became law in January 2003, clarified that advanced practice clinicians could legally provide medical abortion. Little is known about the characteristics associated with nonphysician clinicians' interest in receiving medical abortion training or their perceptions of barriers to medical abortion provision. METHODS In early 2003, a tot...

BACKGROUND Abortion is a serious public health issue, and it poses high risks to the health and life of women. Yet safe abortion services are not readily available because few doctors are trained to provide such services. Many doctors are unaware of laws pertaining to abortion. This article reports survey findings on Malaysian medical students' attitudes toward abortion education and presents a...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to investigate attributes of public service providers associated with the provision of medical abortion in Vietnam. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study via interviewer-administered questionnaire among abortion providers from public health facilities in Hanoi, Khanh Hoa, and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam between August 2011 and January 2012. We r...

BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY South Africa's Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1996 provides for safe termination of pregnancy (TOP) in designated facilities in the public and private health sectors. In 2001, mifepristone-misoprostol medical abortion was approved for TOP up to 56 days, but this method is not yet available in the public sector. Information on the operational requirements fo...

BACKGROUND Increasing access to safe abortion services is the most effective way of preventing the burden of unsafe abortion, which is achieved by increasing safe choices for pregnancy termination. Medical abortion for termination of early abortion is said to safe, effective, and acceptable to women in several countries. In Ethiopia, however, medical methods have, until recently, never been use...

BACKGROUND Unsafe abortion is estimated to account for 13% of maternal mortality globally. Medical abortion is a safe alternative. METHODS By estimating mortality risks for unsafe and medical abortion and childbirth for Tanzania and Ethiopia, we modelled changes in maternal mortality that are achievable if unsafe abortion were replaced by medical abortion. We selected Ethiopia and Tanzania be...

CONTEXT Abortion induced by drugs is now a viable alternative to surgically induced abortion for U. S. women. Women's willingness to use these new methods of medical abortion hinges on the extent to which they prove acceptable, however. METHODS Among 304 women participating in a clinical trial of medical abortion, 186 received a methotrexate-induced abortion and 118 were offered the option of...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the immediate adverse events and safety of medical compared with surgical abortion using high-quality registry data. METHODS All women in Finland undergoing induced abortion from 2000-2006 with a gestational duration of 63 days or less (n=42,619) were followed up until 42 days postabortion using national health registries. The incidence and risk factors of adverse events...

BACKGROUND The long-term safety of surgical abortion in the first trimester is well established. Despite the increasing use of medical abortion (abortion by means of medication), limited information is available regarding the effects of this procedure on subsequent pregnancies. METHODS We identified all women living in Denmark who had undergone an abortion for nonmedical reasons between 1999 ...