Early Options™

I am a Board Certified family doctor and early abortion specialist.  For the past decade, I have pioneered the development of a family practice, or primary care based approach to abortion, called Early Options™.   At Early Options™, women are able to end their pregnancies confidentially in the privacy of a family doctor’s office.  Women are offered the most advanced methods to end early pregnancy.  The Aspiration Abortion method is recommended as the most safe, quick, and simple way to end early pregnancy.  This procedure can be completed within minutes, similar to getting a pap smear.  At Early Options, we think the relationship with your caregiver is critical to a positive medical experience. You meet your doctor to discuss your options, and have a dedicated clinical assistant support you for the entire visit.  You are welcome to have a companion with you for as much of the visit as you choose. 

By creating this blog, I hope to go beyond the typical divisive abortion debate, and to stimulate creative dialogue related to abortion and other women’s health issues.  I believe that the “abortion clinic” model of care has contributed to the divisiveness of the abortion debate.  In clinics, abortion services are separated from mainstream medical care.  When women go to a clinic, they lose their ability to privately choose to end their pregnancy. In clinics, women and doctors can be targeted.  In clinics, women often describe having a stigmatizing or even punitive experience. 

I have been criticized for being critical of abortion clinics.  I am not making a comment on the dedicated staff and doctors, who are often heroic in their decision to provide abortion care.  I am making a comment on the segregation of medical services.  This segregation of services has had significant negative consequences on women’s experiences of having an abortion.  Day after day I see women who have had abortions in an abortion clinic setting, and they describe the experience as traumatic. 

In my opinion, it is important to talk about our experience of abortion in order to advance our medical services, and to normalize this very common choice we have to make as women.  I believe Early Options™ is the model of the future.  Women should be able to end an early pregnancy with simple nonsurgical methods in their private family doctor’s office.  I hope the conversations created on this blog will contribute to this vision.