Whether the girl had any complications   

Whether the girl was counseled on birth control 

The cost of the procedure. 

Some of this information especially whether the girl had postabortion complications and 

whether she was counseled on contraception was obtained through interviewers' probes if the 

girls did not include this information in their spontaneous accounts. 

The girl often had someone accompany her when she was getting a surgical abortion, 

regardless of where it was performed, usually a friend. Other times her mother or an aunt would 

accompany her, or, even less frequently, her boyfriend. One girl explained her boyfriend's 

reaction to her request that he accompany her.  

When I asked my boyfriend to accompany me for an abortion he said he had never 

accompanied anyone to have an abortion before and that he was scared. [Wanda] 

This participant's mother and aunt accompanied her to the hospital for the abortion 

procedure. Many girls said that they did speak with their boyfriends afterward about how the 

procedure went and asked them to buy any medications prescribed, which the boyfriends usually 

did. 

 6.2.1 

Hospital 

Abortions 

Only 4 of the 23 surgical abortions were performed at a hospital. Six other girls 

negotiated with the hospital staff for abortions that took place at the residence of a hospital staff 

member. The first step in a hospital abortion involved filling out a card, for which the girl was 

usually charged a fee. For example, one participant said, 

So, when we got to [the facility], she made me to go for a card, which cost 5,000 [cedis]. 

Then I waited until it was my turn. There were other girls there to have abortions. When 

it was my turn, the nurse called me and I went into the doctor's room without my friend.  

Presumably, filling out a card involves providing identification information and a medical 

or pregnancy history for the record kept at the clinic or hospital. 

Some participants also described the procedure as follows: 

When I got there, I was made to undress and to lay down on a bed with my legs apart. 

Then he inserted a suction device in my vagina and sucked out the blood. In less than 10 

minutes it was over and he said I could go home. I saw everything he did. . . Yes, it was 

[painful].  

Based on the participants' reports, most of the abortions involved the use of an 

instrument that was described as looking or sounding like a suction device. One participant, 

however, said that the abortion she had at the hospital was a  D and C.  Following most 

procedures, the girl was given a prescription and some cotton wool to use as padding.  

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