Abortion Care

Abortion Care

Step-by-Step, How Does Abortion Care Work at Women's Choice?

Abortion is 100% legal in Florida. In addition, all people are free to legally travel between states. Women's Choice coordinates your abortion care to enable you to receive a safe legal abortion in Florida. As a pro-choice, feminist-leaning organization, Women's Choice is devoted to ensuring that all women can receive safe, legal, abortion care in a kind, caring, and nonjudgmental manner. Our trained counselors are supportive of your decision and they will help you and guide you through the entire process.


Here's how obtaining your abortion works, step-by-step:

Pre Abortion Care

  • Upon calling Women's Choice, you will be provided with an in-person, pre-abortion appointment at Women's Choice's office at 15 Maxwell St., Suite 240 , Pensacola, Florida.
  • Upon arrival, and after filling out all paperwork, you will be given private counseling by one of Women's Choice's trained counselors. Your counselor will review your information, explain the process, discuss your decision with you, and answer all of your questions. If your decision is to proceed with an abortion, then your counselor will answer any questions, collect payment, and go over the next steps with you. If you are under 18 years of age, she will arrange for the necessary notarized documents to be signed by one of your parents or legal guardians, to comply with Florida laws concerning minors obtaining abortions. If for some reason you can't have a parent or legal guardian sign this paperwork, please call our office so we can go over your options for getting a judicial bypass.
  • Next, an ultrasound will be provided to you by one of our trained sonographers. You will have the ability to look at your ultrasound and ask questions of Women's Choice's sonographers, who are working in conjunction with your physicians (both your private practice physician and your telemedicine physician). You can also have your ultrasound reviewed with you by one of Women's Choice's nurses or doctors. This ultrasound is also required under Florida law.
  • Labs will be drawn and sent to a Florida lab. These ordered lab tests include testing for Rh Factor and testing for hemoglobin or hematocrit. These labs are also required by Florida law.
  • 5. You will have an in-person consultation and in-person counseling session with one of Women's Choice's Florida-licensed physicians. This in-person physician counseling will happen in Women's Choice's office on the same day as your ultrasound, labs, and other counseling. Again, to legally obtain an abortion in Florida, this in-person physician counseling is required to be done at least 24 hours before your abortion. Your Women's Choice in-person doctor will review your medical record and results with you. Your in-person doctor's note will be signed, dated, and the time noted. If your decision is to proceed with the abortion, and if you qualify medically, then your Women's Choice in-person referring physician will refer you to a private-practice physician who can provide you with the abortion via telemedicine.
  • 6. You will then meet again with one of our counselors. You will be asked to sign some forms. You will then be given an appointment and a link for a telemedicine abortion appointment with the doctor that we referred you to. This appointment will be at least 24-hours after completing your in-person physician counseling. If you desire, this appointment can be as early as 24 hours and 5 minutes after the time-stamp on your in-person doctor's note.
  • Women's Choice works with privately-practicing physicians located throughout the State of Florida to provide your abortion via remote telemedicine. These doctors are all women who support a woman's right to choose and have agreed to provide telemedicine abortions. Many are physicians who quietly, and privately, support women's rights, but who generally shy away from the public limelight and controversy surrounding abortion. They all have their own private offices from which they are all willing to privately help women in need of their services. Our doctors refer you to one of these doctors for the actual abortion procedure. Since these doctors are not publicly-known as abortion providers, most women could never find them on their own. This referral is one of the services Women's Choice provides to you - access to these private practice physicians.
  • There is no additional charge for this telemedicine appointment because the private-practice physicians that we refer to have requested Women's Choice to collect their fee for them, and that was included in your initial payment of $595. After your referral, you will also be asked to sign forms giving us permission to share your Women’s Choice medical records with your private abortion doctor
  • 9. After completing your pre-abortion care in Women's Choices offices, you can leave and return home (or go to a hotel) and wait for at least 24 hours before contacting your telemedicine doctor for the performance of the actual abortion procedure.

    • Abortion Procedure

  • After leaving Women's Choice's office, you can go home or stay overnight in Florida. The next day, at the time of your appointment (at least 24 hours after your visit to Women's Choice's offices), you can use the link we provided you to log in for your telemedicine consultation with your private abortion doctor. No additional fee is required for this appointment, as these doctors have authorized Women's Choice to collect their fee for them, and so their fee was included in your initial payment.
  • During your telemedicine abortion consultation, you must be physically present within the State of Florida. You can be ANYWHERE within Florida, including 10 feet over the state line, but you MUST be within the State of Florida.
  • Telemedicine abortion consultations can vary in length depending upon how many questions you have for your telemedicine doctor. This is up to you and the doctor that we referred you to. However, since you have already had the chance to twice talk with Women's Choices' in-person counselors and talk in-person with Women's Choice's in-person doctor, at least 24-hours before, most women don't have too many questions for their telemedicine private abortion doctor.
  • Your telemedicine private abortion doctor will likely confirm your choice to proceed and answer any questions you may have. The telemedicine consultations will probably be audio-visual, because most doctors want to be able to see you. This will also allow you to see her (we refer to private-practice abortion doctors who are all women).
  • Your telemedicine abortion doctor will likely review your entire medical record from Women's Choice, including your ultrasound, your labs, the counseling notes, and the notes from your in-person Women's Choice referring physician. She should make sure that the in-person physician consultation with the Women's Choice doctor took place at least 24 hours before this telemedicine consultation.
  • Your telemedicine abortion doctor will also probably want to confirm that you are physically present in the State of Florida at the time of the telemedicine session. It might be illegal for the telemedicine private practice physicians to have a telemedicine session with you or to prescribe abortion medications to you if you are standing outside of the State of Florida, because abortion is illegal in most of our neighboring states.
  • It is up to your private physician to use her best judgement about whether to proceed. However, the doctors that we refer to are all pro-choice. So, unless there is some problem, or you change your mind, she will almost always be willing proceed by prescribing abortion pills for you. What medications she prescribes, and in what dosages, is up to your private physician, and you can discuss this with her. You can also discuss with her which pharmacy you wish to use. Once you choose a pharmacy, then your private doctor will have a prescription for your abortion medications sent to the Florida-licensed pharmacy of your choice. The prescription cannot be sent to any pharmacy outside of the state of Florida where abortion is illegal. We recommend that you ask your private abortion doctor to send your prescription to a Woman's Choice-recommended pharmacy.
  • You can immediately go to a Florida-licensed pharmacy and pick up your medications. These medications may be free if you have Medicaid or private health insurance that will pay for them. If you are uninsured, or if you elect not to use your insurance, then you may have to pay a small fee to the pharmacy. You may generally take the medication prescribed immediately, but you should follow the directions provided by your doctor.

    • Post Procedure

  • If you have any questions or concerns after taking your medications, you are welcome to call your Women's Choices counselors, or Women's Choice's in-person physician, or your telemedicine physician. All can answer basic general questions about medications, side-effects, etc.
  • Unless there is something unusual about your case, your private physician will probably ask Women's Choice to handle your follow-up, post-abortion care. If that is your private doctor's instruction, then Women's Choice will send you a follow-up email survey 1-2 weeks after your abortion. Please fill out this short survey and return it via email to Women's Choice. If you are doing well and have no problems, then Women's Choice will ask you to take a home pregnancy test after four weeks (don't take it sooner because it will still be positive if you take the test too early). If you have no problems and all goes well (as is the case in over 90% of cases), then you will not need any further follow-up care from Women's Choice or your private doctor, and you can return to your private gynecologist for ongoing care. If you have any questions or concerns you are welcome to call Women's Choice or your private doctor. Also, you may to return to Women's Choice for contraception and ongoing gyn care. This can be done via telemedicine if you prefer. Should you prefer, Women's Choice can also provide you with a follow-up ultrasound and a follow-up in-person evaluation and check-up with our in-person physician.
  • If you live in a state where abortion is illegal, we do not recommend that you go to a doctor in your home state for post-abortion care. It is better to receive all of your post-abortion care at Women's Choice or from another doctor inside the State of Florida, where your abortion is legal.
  • If you return to Women's Choice for follow-up care, we will perform an in-person ultrasound and our physician will perform an examination of you. After confirming that the abortion is complete, then our physicians can offer you contraception . These are available that very day.
  • After your abortion is completed, we invite you to continue with Women's Choice for your ongoing gynecological care.