Fact
Pregnancy options and decision support
Someone facing a decision about a pregnancy generally has three options. They are continuing the pregnancy and parenting, continuing the pregnancy and placing the child for adoption, or ending the pregnancy. Which are available in practice depends on personal circumstances, on how far along the pregnancy is, and on local law. Qualified non-directive support exists, and it is different from a service that has already decided what you should do.
This page describes the options and points to qualified support. It does not recommend an outcome, score your answers, or hold anything you write. There is no quiz here.
What this page is and is not
This is a publication about abortion procedures. That is a fact worth stating plainly, because a page about options should be honest about where it sits.
What that does not mean is that this page recommends abortion. It does not. It does not recommend anything, it does not present one option in warmer language than another, and it does not hide the other options in smaller type at the bottom.
There is no quiz here, no scoring, and no form. Nothing you think while reading this page is recorded anywhere.
The options
Continuing the pregnancy and parenting. Practical questions here include prenatal care, cost, work and leave, housing, childcare, and support. A clinician, a social worker, or a benefits advisor can usually help work through these.
Continuing the pregnancy and arranging adoption. Adoption arrangements vary considerably in structure and in law, and the differences matter, including how much contact is agreed and what is legally binding. Independent legal advice is worth having before signing anything.
Ending the pregnancy. What is involved is described on the types of abortion page. Which methods apply depends on pregnancy duration, health, available services, and local law.
Which of these are practically available differs by person and by place. Legal rules affect this and are separate from medical facts. The law and policy section explains where to check the official record.
What non-directive support means
Professional guidance describes pregnancy options counselling as person-centred: the person's own values and circumstances lead, and the counsellor's job is to inform rather than to steer.
Ways to tell what you have found:
- A non-directive service answers your questions, tells you what it does and does not provide, does not delay you, and does not require you to view or listen to anything before it will help.
- A service with a predetermined answer may present one outcome as obviously right, may be vague about what services it actually provides, may create urgency or delay, or may respond to a direct question about what it offers with something other than a direct answer.
A useful question to ask any service directly: "What services do you provide yourself, and what do you refer out?" A clear answer is a good sign.
Questions people find useful
There is no correct answer to any of these, and nothing here is scored.
- What matters most to me about my life over the next year, and the next five?
- What would I need in order to feel able to continue this pregnancy?
- What would I need in order to feel able to end it?
- Who in my life is involved in this decision, and who is not?
- Whose reaction am I most worried about, and how much weight do I want to give it?
- What is driving the timing here, and how much of that is real?
- What do I still need to find out before I can decide?
- If money, distance, and time were not obstacles, would my answer change?
Writing the answers down somewhere private often helps. This site is not that place, and it offers no field to type them into, because it does not want your health information.
If someone is pressuring you
Pressure toward continuing a pregnancy, and pressure toward ending one, are both coercion. It can come from a partner, a family member, or someone else with power over your housing, money, immigration situation, or safety. Interfering with someone's contraception, or controlling their reproductive decisions, is a recognised form of abuse.
- National Domestic Violence Hotline, reproductive coercion has confidential support and information.
- RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
- If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
Time, without false urgency
Time matters here in a specific way: which options are available narrows as a pregnancy progresses, and appointments and travel take time to arrange. That is a practical fact and it is worth knowing.
It is not a reason to decide before you are ready, and no one on this site will tell you that you have to decide today. If it helps to find out what your options actually are while you think, doing that is not the same as choosing one.
Where to find help
The access section links a verified provider search and a national hotline that can discuss options and costs. For continuing a pregnancy, a clinician, a midwife, or a social worker at a health service is usually the most direct route. This site does not maintain its own directory of services, because a list that is not actively verified can send someone to the wrong place.