A RECORD 10,000 women had an abortion in their own home last year, according to new figures.

Britain’s biggest independent abortion provider, bpas, said yesterday that use of the abortion pill — also known as EMA (early medical abortion) — now accounted for nearly a third of the 32,000 terminations it provided last year to women in the first nine weeks of pregnancy.

Ann Furedi, the organisation’s chief executive, said that demand for the pill had really “taken off” in the past two to three years after bpas started allowing women to go home after the second dose. In 2003 bpas clinics provided 3,500 women with the abortion pill. This rose to 5,000 in 2004 and then doubled to 10,000 in 2005. This made bpas the single biggest provider of the abortion pill in Europe.

Anti-abortion campaigners condemned the provision of what some have called DIY abortions, saying that they have been linked with the deaths of ten women. It was clear, they added, that bedroom abortions, like backstreet abortions, were dangerous.

The abortion pill is given in two stages. A woman must go to a clinic to take the first oral dose of a drug called mifepristone (also known as RU486), which blocks pregnancy hormones. She returns 48 hours later for a second drug, a prostaglandin, which triggers a miscarriage some hours later.

Women receiving the abortion pill at bpas clinics are sent home after the second dose so that they can have the miscarriage at home.

Supporters argue that being able to go home to have the miscarriage gives a woman more control over a very personal procedure. It means she does not have to stay in hospital or in a clinic for hours and that she can guard her privacy even from those closest to her, if she wants. It also gives a woman greater flexibility to fit the procedure into what may be a hectic schedule.

“Many women find the fact they can go home is more natural, private and something they can organise into their lives better. With EMA, it’s the woman having the abortion, rather than a doctor doing it to them.

“This is what makes it attractive to women, as opposed to a surgical abortion involving a general anaesthetic,” Ms Furedi said.

She added that women needed to have proper counselling before going home to miscarry after the second dose. “They lose a lot of blood and the cramping can be intense. It’s not just like having a heavy period. We give women a number they can use to contact us any time of day or night in case they are worried.”

Opponents, who are largely opposed to abortion altogether, argue that the abortion pill poses serious health risks, such as haemorrhaging when the foetus is expelled from the uterus. Leaving a woman isolated at home at this difficult time could also cause lasting psychological damage, they say.

Michaela Aston, a spokeswoman for the anti-abortion organisation LIFE, said:“RU486 is a powerful and dangerous cocktail of drugs.”

She claimed it had been responsible for the death of at least ten women and that the US Food and Drug Administration was currently considering a ban because of safety concerns. “As a counsellor with first hand experience of the traumatic effects that abortion can have on women, I am disturbed that the bpas seems prepared to sacrifice women’s health out of expediency.”

Opponents have also said that the convenience and speed offered by the abortion pill may encourage women to opt for a termination which they later regret - a point emphatically denied by bpas, which was formerly known as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. “It absolutely won’t make it easier for a woman to decide whether to have an abortion,” Ms Furedi insisted.

EMA can only be provided in the UK in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. After that women must have a surgical abortion. Although bpas has been providing the abortion pill since 2000, its use has recently increased sharply in line with a big increase in early abortions.

The number of abortions bpas provided to women in the first nine weeks of gestation rose from 27,000 to 32,000 between 2004 and 2005. Early abortions now account for 65 per cent of the organisation’s 49,000 case load, up from 56 per cent a year earlier. This increase is part of an overall trend. In 2004, the latest year for which government figures are available, there were 185,400 abortions in England and Wales, compared with 181,600 in 2003, a rise of 2.1 per cent.

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