UK – Will At-Home Abortions Be Available As Coronavirus Restrictions Ease?

Alice Broster
Feb 27, 2021

At the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, the UK government announced that early abortion care would be available at home, via telemedicine. The government is now debating whether to continue this as lockdown eases or go back to only administering abortions within a medical setting. Medical professionals from MSI Reproductive Choices UK and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service have argued for increased access to abortions as a matter of essential healthcare throughout the pandemic and research has found that at-home early medical abortions are no riskier and have cut down waiting periods which is essential when people are wanting to have a termination.

Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicebroster/2021/02/27/will-at-home-abortions-be-available-as-coronavirus-restrictions-ease/?sh=686aaf192add

Make home abortion permanently legal, doctors leader urges

Katie Gibbons, The Times Friday February 19 2021

Doctors are calling for home medical abortions to be made permanently legal as figures show that allowing women to take pills in private without visiting a clinic cuts waiting times.

Temporary legislation was introduced at the beginning of the pandemic to allow women easier access to medical termination in their homes via phone and video consultations.

Continued: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/make-home-abortion-permanently-legal-doctors-leader-urges-886m2rtnk

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

MPs step up pressure for Northern Ireland abortion reform

MPs step up pressure for Northern Ireland abortion reform
Cross-party calls for backing on plan to force May to intervene

Michael Savage
Sat 2 Jun 2018

MPs are being canvassed to back a plan to force through measures liberalising abortion in Northern Ireland, it has emerged.

A cross-party coalition has drawn up a proposal that would force Theresa May into taking action. Some of the most senior women in the Tory party are said to be supportive of the campaign following the landslide result in Ireland’s referendum in favour of ending its near total ban on abortion.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/02/mps-urged-back-forced-liberalisation-abortion-northern-ireland