UK – The fight to repeal one of the most outdated abortion laws in the world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

Australia – The game-changing plan to cut barriers to medical abortion

By Nell Geraets
January 16, 2023

A push is under way to make medical abortion more accessible across Australia by cutting down the regulatory barriers around who can prescribe the pill combination and where it can be stocked.

Non-profit pharmaceutical company MS Health – the private sponsor behind medical abortion in Australia – submitted applications to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in December that proposed expanding the number of health practitioners eligible to prescribe the medication, and removing the requirements for recertification and pharmacist registration.

Continued: https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-game-changing-plan-to-cut-barriers-to-medical-abortion-20230108-p5cb2i.html

Scotland – Telemedicine in abortion care: safe, effective, preferred

Greta Hughson
12 July 2021

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland began providing telemedicine services for medical abortion. In this interview, we spoke to Dr John Reynolds-Wright of the Medical Research Council Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh, who worked with a team to assess outcomes and acceptability for people using these services in Edinburgh. The study worked with 663 women choosing medical abortion at home between April and July 2020.

The study started in April 2020 – how did it come about so soon after COVID restrictions began?
I usually work as a doctor in sexual and reproductive health but I’m currently doing a PhD and working as a research fellow at the Chalmers Sexual Health Centre in Edinburgh. Before COVID, we were working on a large randomised controlled trial (RCT) called the UTAH study, which stood for ‘Using Telemedicine to improve early medical Abortion at Home’. We were randomising women to have a telephone assessment prior to their abortion versus a standard face-to-face assessment.

Continued: https://www.aidsmap.com/news/jul-2021/telemedicine-abortion-care-safe-effective-preferred

N. Ireland – How We Won the Right to Choose

How We Won the Right to Choose

By Maev McDaid and Brian Christopher
10.31.2019

Coming hot on the heels of Dublin’s repeal of anti-abortion laws, decriminalization in the North is a decisive victory for Irish feminists. The church and the state are losing their control over our bodies — but we still need to make abortion legal, safe, and free.

October 22 marked a decisive victory in the North of Ireland, as abortion was finally decriminalized. This news will surely have passed many people by — after all, in national as in international media, the North is almost only ever “represented” by the bigots in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). But last week, this stridently anti-choice party was finally overruled by the Westminster parliament. Its move to decriminalize abortion in the North came fifty years after a similar step was taken on the British mainland. Yet this success especially owes to decades of heroic struggles waged by Irish feminists.

continued: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/10/northern-ireland-abortion-eighth-amendment

UK – Mother sues NHS for £200,000 claiming hospital failed to inform her of son’s Down’s Syndrome diagnosis

Mother sues NHS for £200,000 claiming hospital failed to inform her of son's Down's Syndrome diagnosis

Telegraph Reporters
8 July 2019

Hospital notes show that a mother shouldn't receive £200,000 in damages from the NHS for having child with Down's Syndrome because she declined to have him tested before he was born, a court heard.

Edyta Mordel, 33, is claiming hospital staff failed to do the antenatal tests she wanted, which would have revealed that she was carrying a disabled child.

Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/08/mother-sues-nhs-200000-claiming-hospital-failed-inform-sons/

08.07.2019

National Health Service

She helped her 15 year old get an abortion. Now she’s facing charges in Northern Ireland

She helped her 15 year old get an abortion. Now she's facing charges in Northern Ireland

By Haley Ott
June 26, 2019

London -- A woman is facing criminal charges in Northern Ireland for getting her 15-year-old daughter abortion pills to end an unwanted pregnancy in 2013. The woman's lawyer says the police were alerted after the daughter, who was in an abusive relationship, told a therapist she had taken the pills. The woman's legal team is challenging the prosecution.

Abortion is against the law in Northern Ireland except when a pregnant woman's health is at risk of permanent harm. There are no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Women who have illegal abortions can face up to life in prison if caught, and medical professionals are required to report anyone who has had one to the authorities.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abortion-northern-ireland-mother-of-15-year-old-facing-criminal-charges/

Abortion law change: Is Northern Ireland really next?

Abortion law change: Is Northern Ireland really next?
Pro-choice activists in the North hope a string of court cases will advance their cause

Sat, Jan 12, 2019
Susan McKay

On the 29th of this month, Sarah Ewart will appear before the High court in Belfast to present her case that women in Northern Ireland should have access to rights enjoyed by women in all other parts of the United Kingdom.

Ewart is bracing herself – this appearance, while demanding, will be infinitely less agonising than other ordeals she has been through. Five years ago, aged 23, the Belfast woman travelled to an abortion clinic in England to terminate a much wanted pregnancy that was otherwise going to end with the birth of a baby with a foetal abnormality.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/abortion-law-change-is-northern-ireland-really-next-1.3753579

Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws must end

Northern Ireland's restrictive abortion laws must end

Cahir O'Doherty
Nov 09, 2018

In Northern Ireland a woman who has been raped or abused can still receive a longer prison sentence than her rapist or abuser if she seeks to end the resulting unwanted pregnancy.

Sit with the implications of that sentence for a moment. Thanks the 1861 Offenses Against The Person Act, written over 151 years ago, anyone performing or receiving abortions there can be threatened with life imprisonment.

Continued: https://www.irishcentral.com/homepage/northern-ireland-abortion-ban-must-end

Let women in England take abortion pills at home, say medical experts

Let women in England take abortion pills at home, say medical experts

Lin Taylor
July 9, 2018

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Women in England should be able to take abortion pills at home to avoid the “distressing experience” of suffering pain and heavy bleeding while returning from hospitals and clinics, medical experts said on Monday.

Studies suggest that it is safe for women to take abortion drugs at home instead of in a clinic and allowing them to do so does not increase abortion rates, according to an editorial in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) Sexual & Reproductive Health.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-women-abortion/let-women-in-england-take-abortion-pills-at-home-say-medical-experts-idUSKBN1JZ2UB

Britain enforces first abortion clinic exclusion zone

Britain enforces first abortion clinic exclusion zone

Apr 23, 2018

LONDON (AFP) - A ban on pro-life protests outside an abortion clinic in London came into force on Monday (April 23) in a first that pro-choice campaigners hope will set a precedent for the country.

The local authority in Ealing, west London, imposed an exclusion zone after claims that women and staff at the Marie Stopes clinic were being intimidated and harassed by vigils that have been held outside the building for more than 20 years.

Continued: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/britain-enforces-first-abortion-clinic-exclusion-zone