Image: Demand for Decriminalisation of Abortion Protest, London, June 2023. Photo: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Part I: In the years since medical abortion pills were approved as an abortion method in England & Wales, a number of women have been arrested for using the pills outside of the strict legal restrictions. Those restrictions have included: 1) adhering to the upper time limit for a legal abortion of 24 weeks if aborting in an approved hospital or clinic; 2) obtaining the approval of two doctors in line with the requirements of the law. More recently, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, women have been permitted to obtain the pills on prescription and abort at home up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, if two doctors have agreed.
The story: Seven years ago, a young woman, age 18, became pregnant with her partner of the same age. The pregnancy was unintended and unwanted. Given what happened, and her age, she probably did not realise she was pregnant for quite some time, though this is not mentioned by the media. Eventually, the couple bought abortion pills, source unknown. They never denied doing so. However, they always denied that she had ever used the pills to cause an abortion. Instead, she sought an abortion at a clinic. But by that time, she was said to be 28 weeks and 5 days pregnant, well over the legal upper time limit. Then, at some point after that, she miscarried. The fetus was stillborn, and she disposed of it in a bin.
The couple were arrested and charged. Seven years later, the trial was scheduled. The Crown’s case was that she was untruthful about not taking the pills – though they believed what she said happened afterwards. One way or another, however, they were not really believed. By now age 25, the two stood trial at Gloucester Crown Court in May 2024. However, the young woman’s defence attorney asked the judge to dismiss the jury and the case, because an inaccurate news report by the BBC, just before the start of the trial, would have prejudiced the jury and everyone else, and a fair trial would not have been possible.
The judge agreed, regretfully, and the jury were discharged. An unnamed BBC journalist(s) had apparently reported that the young woman had taken the pills and that she had buried the fetus in the garden, where a tent had been set up and the police were digging to find it…all untrue. Afterwards, the BBC apologised in court.
This seems to be a summary of the facts, or one might more accurately say, of the claims made in this case, according to The National, a Scottish news source, in an online report on 23 December 2024.
But the aftermath of the trial was yet to come… First, the couple had both previously admitted a charge of “concealing the birth of a child”. Other offences they had been charged with included “procuring a poison”, “procuring a miscarriage by poison” and “perverting the course of justice”. All these charges had been ordered by the judge to “lie on file” to be dealt with.
The judge later imposed 18-month community orders on both of them. In addition, the young woman was given a “mental health treatment requirement” (not as punishment, she was emotionally in a very bad state). Her partner was told to complete 150 hours of unpaid work. Both were told to pay a £114 surcharge.
With this, the National’s report ends only with a statement from the BBC: “Our apology was accepted by the judge hearing the case.”
SOURCES: The National, by Gregor Young, 23 December 2024 ; The Guardian, 18 December 2024 ; The Guardian, 19 December 2024.
Part II: The real problems with this “criminal case”
First, the language of the UK’s Offences Against the Person Act 1861 was used to describe a safe and legal abortion method as a “poison”, even though it is approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) and is on the WHO Essential Medicines List. Some of the methods used in 1861 in the UK to cause an abortion may or may not have been poisons, but this method is absolutely NOT a poison.
Whether its use was legal or illegal, is a different matter. And yet in every one of the growing list of cases being taken against women in Britain for obtaining and using this method, all the prosecutors and courts have called it a poison.
That must be stopped — not only because it is false but because it will also falsely prejudice every court case.
Furthermore, I believe the UK Supreme Court should be asked to rule on whether Sections 5 and 59 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act should actually be applied to the use of medical abortion pills outside the limits set in the 1967 Abortion Act, precisely because all the methods covered in that law are presumed to be poisons. Moreover, those sections do not apply in Northern Ireland, so why should they still apply in all of Great Britain? Is this a United Kingdom, or isn’t it?
Second, the 1967 Abortion Act is now 58 years old and was last revised in 1990. Its main purpose was to ensure that women were only permitted to have an abortion if two doctors agreed, based on a list of reasons. This basis in law was developed because abortions at the time were surgical procedures and could not be carried out safely by those without appropriate training. However, as surgical abortion methods developed, they became less and less complicated and although it took an unconscionable amount of time for that to result in less highly qualified healthcare providers being allowed to do abortions (gynaecologists were strongly protecting their main source of income, and still do), early abortion methods became much safer than surgery. Aspiration abortions have long since replaced surgical methods in the great majority of cases, and can be and are now done by trained nurses and GPs in many countries. They no longer need to take place in a tertiary hospital setting or as overnight cases, but rather as day cases and could easily be done in a family planning clinic or GP surgery.
At the same time, medical abortions with mifepristone + misoprostol can now take place at home, one of the few positive outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has now been made permanent policy in the UK. The pills under current British law must still be obtained through an abortion clinic or qualified doctor, but this limitation surely deserves to be questioned. Why? Because hundreds of thousands of women, if not millions, have been obtaining and safely using medical abortion pills from qualified internet-based providers (including e.g. Women Help Women and Women on Web) and also from pharmacies for several decades, legally or otherwise.
Thus, safe abortion is being criminalised beyond any rational medical or safety reason. Why? I think only to maintain control over women’s lives. This violates our human rights, including the right to life, the right to health, the right to bodily autonomy, and the right to decide whether and when to have children. It must be changed in Britain (and everywhere else) as soon as possible.
SOURCE: Marge Berer, ICWRSA Newsletter Editor, 10 January 2025.