Leading women’s health experts have warned of an attack on women’s reproductive rights and the potential for more prosecutions, following the jailing of a woman for terminating her pregnancy after the legal time limit.
The president of the UK’s leading body for sexual health professionals said that women should be “more worried than they are” following the sentencing, adding that it could lead to sustained attacks on established rights, and efforts to curtail reforms.
“I think people should be a lot more worried about this than they are,” said Dr Janet Barter, president of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare.
“I think Roe versus Wade shocked all of us. I don’t think anyone really thought that could happen. And if it can happen in the States, it could happen here.”
On Saturday, the Women’s Equality party, the Fawcett Society and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service are leading a march from the Royal Courts of Justice to Westminster to demand the decriminalisation of abortion.
“I think this case has rightly really shocked people and I think that is opening up a new level of political debate,” said Jemima Olchawski, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society. “I think lots of people don’t know that abortion is so criminalised in the UK.”
On Tuesday, several reproductive healthcare organisations called for an overhaul of the “shocking” and “archaic” abortion law that led to the woman being sentenced to more than two years in prison for procuring drugs to induce an abortion after the legal limit.
Experts argued that abortion should be regulated but decriminalised. “Abortion care is highly regulated and should be subject to professional standards like any other healthcare procedures, not criminal sanctions,” said Barter.
According to these organisations, decriminalisation does not necessarily mean that abortions after 24 weeks’ gestation would be legalised. But rather, for the very small number of abortions (0.05% of total abortions in England) that fall into this category, the woman would not be subject to potential prosecution.
The trial of the woman who was sentenced on Monday after being prosecuted under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act’s sections on abortion, heard that she had procured a miscarriage knowing she was beyond the legal cut-off point. Doctors later concluded that the foetus was between 32 and 34 weeks gestation when it was delivered.
In England, Scotland and Wales, abortion is generally legal up to 24 weeks but is carried out in a hospital or clinic after 10 weeks.
Katherine O’Brien of British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) said the impact of Monday’s sentencing was “only going to be the beginning of more prosecutions and more police investigations.”
“I do think that now that we know that a woman has been sent to prison, we think that this is only going to be the beginning of more prosecutions and more police investigations”.
In a letter addressed to the judge and signed by members of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, signatories warned that a custodial sentence may “send a signal that those suffering unexplained later pregnancy loss should be treated with suspicion”, having warned that they are “already witnessing a rise in the number of investigations following a later gestation delivery”.
BPAS said the organisation had supported women who had been investigated by the police after delivering stillborn babies, and that in the past few years these cases have been on the rise.
Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, called on the director of public prosecutions, Max Hill, to review sentencing in relation to abortion.
“We need reform [and] decriminalisation to bring us in line with most progressive countries – we’re way behind places like New Zealand, Canada … even Northern Ireland now has more liberal laws,” she said. “I think the CPS [Criminal Prosecution Service] need to look at the guidance on public interest and prosecution of such cases, and the DPP [director of public prosecutions] could put out guidance.”
Campaigners point to a disparity between Northern Ireland and England, Scotland and Wales. Since 2019 abortion has been legal in Northern Ireland if one medical professional certifies that the pregnancy has not passed its 12th week. Abortions can also be carried out until 24 weeks where there is a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman, and after 24 weeks in limited circumstances. When the law passed it effectively decriminalised abortion with a pause on prosecutions.
In England, Scotland and Wales abortion is generally legal up to 24 weeks, but two doctors must decide “in good faith” that a woman meets the legal requirements for an abortion and – unlike in Northern Ireland – nurses and midwives are not able to carry out the procedure.
O’Brien said BPAS and other organisations were asking for the same protections to be extended across the UK. “If a woman in Belfast can’t be imprisoned for ending her own pregnancy, a woman in Brighton shouldn’t be either,” she said, adding that the law used in Great Britain was “woefully out of date”.
Louise McCudden, MSI Reproductive Choices’ UK head of external affairs, stressed that despite abortion being one of the most “common gynaecological procedures provided by the NHS”, it was still governed by a 19th-century law.
“Abortion is healthcare,” she added. “Yet it is still governed by a law from 1861, at a time when healthcare and society were completely different. Women couldn’t vote. It was 68 years before penicillin was discovered. Abortion pills would not be invented for over a century.”
