UK – Is scandal-hit anti-abortion charity operating in secret under new name?

NHS websites are still signposting pregnant people to ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ despite warnings from campaigners

Nandini Archer
1 August 2023

An anti-abortion charity that claimed to have shut down following a scandal nine years ago may have resurfaced as a directory of so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ (CPCs), an openDemocracy investigation has discovered.

And at least half a dozen government websites are still signposting people to the controversial centres, despite accusations that workers at some CPCs try to talk vulnerable people out of having abortions.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/government-nhs-crisis-pregnancy-anti-abortion/

UK – The fight to repeal one of the most outdated abortion laws in the world

By Sana Noor Haq and Niamh Kennedy, CNN

Fri June 23, 2023

Hundreds of protesters lined the street outside the UK’s High Court on Saturday holding picket signs that read “Our bodies, Our right to decide,” before marching through the streets of central London demanding reformed abortion laws for women in England and Wales.

Earlier this month, a British woman who used medication to terminate a pregnancy after the UK’s legally allowed limit was sentenced to 28 months in prison under Victorian-era legislation, in a case that has sparked calls for an overhaul of reproductive justice laws in the country. The woman, who has three children, will serve 14 months in custody and the remainder on license after her release.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/uk/abortion-decriminalization-reproductive-justice-protests-intl-gbr/index.html

Calls for abortion to be decriminalised amid row over jailing of UK woman

Leading expert warns of ‘sustained attacks’ on reproductive rights after sentence imposed on Monday

Alexandra Topping and Tobi Thomas
Tue 13 Jun 2023

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.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/13/calls-for-abortion-to-be-decriminalised-amid-row-over-jailing-of-uk-woman

‘If we can do it, you can do it’: US anti-abortion groups ramp up activities in UK

Emboldened by victories at home, some of the most prominent American anti-abortion groups are exporting their tactics overseas

Katherine Stewart
Sun 2 Apr 2023

Anti-abortion groups are stepping up efforts to spread US-style abortion politics to the UK, ramping up spending with the ambition of shaking up political life beyond American borders.

Fresh off their historic victory in bringing about the end of the constitutional right to abortion in the US, these groups are importing familiar tactics, including public protests and demonstrations, anti-abortion counseling centers or so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”, and the cultivation of ties with clerical leaders.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/02/us-anti-abortion-groups-uk-far-right

UK – Rishi Sunak accused of taking ‘anti-abortion stance’ by service providers

Exclusive: Key members of the new cabinet have consistently voted against abortion rights in England

Alexandra Topping
Fri 4 Nov 2022

All four holders of the “Great Offices of State” have failed to support a woman’s right to access safe abortions in England over the past seven years, the Guardian can reveal.

Abortion providers have warned that access to safe abortions is at risk and accused the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, of taking a “anti-abortion stance”, after the minister for women, Maria Caulfield, was given responsibility for abortion services as part of her second role as a health minister.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/04/rishi-sunak-accused-of-taking-anti-abortion-stance-by-service-providers

Texas abortion ban means ‘other US states will follow’, pro-choice campaigners warn

‘Rich women will have abortions, and poor women will die or have babies. That’s what’s going to happen in Texas’

By Jasmine Andersson, iNews UK
September 2, 2021

Texas’s strict new abortion ban puts women’s lives at risk and could cause other US states to follow suit, campaigners have warned.

In a major blow to abortion rights, the US Supreme Court refused to block the law – known as S.B. 8 – which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/texas-abortion-law-ban-us-states-pro-choice-campaigners-1179534

Dangerous so-called abortion reversal treatment offered to women ‘by anti-abortion groups in UK’

‘There is also a very real risk of haemorrhage from using these medications. The fact that anti-abortion groups are encouraging women down this path demonstrates that they do not care about women,’ says expert

Maya Oppenheim, Women’s Correspondent
March 25, 2021

Dangerous so-called abortion reversal treatment is being offered to women by anti-abortion groups in the UK, healthcare professionals have said.

The warning comes after an undercover investigation conducted by Open Democracy revealed advocates of abortion pill reversal treatment claimed at least 60 women in Britain requested it in the first half of last year.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/abortion-reversal-treatment-women-anti-abortion-groups-b1822583.html

UK women are being ‘used as guinea pigs’ by ‘abortion reversal’ doctors

openDemocracy investigation reveals spread of controversial treatment that claims to ‘reverse’ abortions, supported by US Christian right

Nandini Archer
25 March 2021

“We do help hundreds of women every day in the UK,” said a tired-sounding American woman who spoke to an openDemocracy undercover reporter in the middle of her night. “We’re like the international abortion pill reversal line.”

So-called ‘abortion pill reversal’ (APR) treatment was invented by a controversial anti-abortion doctor in California. It prescribes high doses of progesterone, a hormone, after the first of two pills used for medical abortions.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/uk-women-are-being-used-as-guinea-pigs-by-abortion-reversal-doctors/

Edinburgh City Council U-turn on blocked abortion advice website searches

Edinburgh City Council has announced it will no longer block access to vital abortion information websites, after facing heavy criticism from a leading charity.

By Joseph Anderson
Wednesday, 17th February 2021

The council was previously accused of ‘taking
an anti-abortion stance’ by pro-choice campaigners after a freedom of
information act, submitted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, revealed
the council does not allow employees or school pupils to access lifesaving
healthcare information on abortion.

Previously, the only accessible website containing abortion information was the
NHS website, however, charities such as the British Pregnancy Advisory
Service(BPAS) – which campaigns for women’s reproductive choices, provides a
helpline and appointments, and signposts women to treatment – were blocked .

Continued: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/health/edinburgh-city-council-u-turn-blocked-abortion-advice-website-searches-3137588

17.02.2021

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Edinburgh City Council

Katherine O’Brien

Local Democracy Reporting Service

How the pandemic revolutionised abortion access in the UK

Since patients have been allowed to take pills at home to terminate pregnancies, major medical complications have dropped by two-thirds.

15 DECEMBER 2020
BY KATHARINE SWINDELLS

When national lockdown was imposed at the end of March, and in-person access to healthcare was limited, the government initially flip-flopped over temporary changes to abortion laws.

Yet from the beginning of April, it approved measures to allow patients within the first ten weeks of pregnancy to take abortion pills at home after a telephone call or e-consultation with a clinician. Previously, these would have been face-to-face appointments.

Continued: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2020/12/how-pandemic-revolutionised-abortion-access-uk