Why abortion rights in the UK are getting more and more perilous

Campaigners say confused health professionals are driving the increasing prosecutions of women. Others blame the police. But ultimately, the Crown Prosecution Service has questions to answer

Zoe Williams
Mon 19 May 2025

Earlier this month, Nicola Packer was found not guilty of illegally terminating a pregnancy, after taking abortion pills beyond the legal limit of 10 weeks. She had spent more than four years living in the shadow of this prosecution, every detail of which – as reported by Phoebe Davis – is completely harrowing. In 2020, Packer was arrested before she left Chelsea and Westminster hospital, still bleeding from major surgery.

Packer is one of six women to be prosecuted for this crime in England since the end of 2022, under the Offences Against the Person Act, which had previously only been used in such cases three times since its introduction in 1861. Even that striking, inexplicable figure doesn’t begin to describe how many people have fallen victim to these prosecutions. There have been cases of women denied contact with their children while police investigated a charge that came to nothing. A teenager who had a late miscarriage was arrested in front of her entire street – her privacy, her education, her peace of mind completely destroyed.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2025/may/19/why-abortion-rights-in-the-uk-are-getting-more-and-more-perilous

UK woman who took pills during lockdown cleared of illegal abortion

Nicola Packer, 45, was prescribed medication but was accused of believing she was more than 10 weeks pregnant

Hannah Al-Othman, North of England correspondent
Thu 8 May 2025

A woman has been cleared of illegally terminating a pregnancy, after taking abortion pills during lockdown.

Nicola Packer took the pills at home in November 2020. She had been prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol after a remote consultation.

She later delivered a foetus, which the court heard was estimated to be about 26 weeks in gestation, which she brought with her to Chelsea and Westminster hospital, Isleworth crown court heard.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/08/uk-woman-who-took-pills-during-lockdown-cleared-of-abortion

08.05.2025

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

prosecuting women for abortion

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Scottish ministers accused of failing women who cannot get later abortions

Campaigners say ‘extremely vulnerable women’ are having to travel hundreds of miles to visit English clinics

Libby Brooks, Scotland correspondent
Mon 21 Apr 2025

Campaigners have warned Scottish ministers that they are failing in their legal and moral duties as growing numbers of “extremely vulnerable women” have to travel hundreds of miles south because they cannot access later-term abortions in Scotland.

Not one of Scotland’s 14 regional health boards provide abortion care after 20 weeks except in the specific cases of foetal abnormality or threat to a woman’s life. This is despite the Scottish government promising to rectify this “explicit inequality” three years ago, and abortion being legal on broad grounds until 24 weeks across the UK.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/21/scottish-government-failing-women-who-cant-access-later-term-abortions-campaigners-say

Scotland – Revealed: How ‘sinister’ lack of access to surgical abortions puts lives at risk

'They think sending women to England is perfectly reasonable,' say campaigners as lack of abortion care in Scotland drives women south of the border

Greg Barradale
3 Mar 2025

When one 16-year-old girl in Scotland found out she was pregnant at 23 weeks, the “fear and shame” of her situation led her to contemplate suicide. Her family were anti-abortion, so her boyfriend’s mum had to take her to London for treatment at a BPAS clinic.

Another teenager, who discovered she was having a cryptic pregnancy after her contraceptive injection failed, vomited on herself out of shock when told she would have to travel to England to get an abortion. The journey cost her thousands of pounds.

Continued: https://www.bigissue.com/life/health/surgical-abortions-care-scotland-england-women-health/

03.03.2025

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Prayer and prosecutions: the US ‘hate group’ waging war over Britain’s abortion clinic buffer zones

Anti-abortion campaigners cheer as JD Vance brands safe zones an attack on ‘liberties of religious Britons’

Shanti Das
Sun 16 Feb 2025

Rachael Clarke remembers life before buffer zones. Almost every day, the head of staff at the UK’s biggest abortion provider would get emails from staff worried about protesters outside clinics – and women crying in the waiting room.

Some of the protesters had huge placards with graphic images of foetuses. Others held candlelit vigils and said prayers. One scattered baby clothes in the bushes. “We had everything from people telling women that having an abortion was putting their baby in a meat grinder to people following nurses down the road in the dark telling them they were killing babies,” says Clarke.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/16/prayer-and-prosecutions-the-us-hate-group-waging-war-over-britains-abortion-clinic-buffer-zones

Scotland is failing these women and girls when it comes to abortion

16th February, 2025
By Gemma Clark

I HAVE been campaigning for better abortion rights in Scotland for several years.

In 2022, I petitioned Parliament for decriminalisation and the government responded by affirming that abortion is, first and foremost, a healthcare matter.

It has since established an expert working group, which felt like a significant victory for our small country against the backdrop of a global attack on women’s rights.

Continued: https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24939621.scotland-failing-women-girls-comes-abortion/

16.02.2025

Opinion

24-week limit

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

decriminalisation of abortion

Gemma Clark

severe foetal anomalies

Stella Creasy warns UK is seeing weaponisation of abortion like US and whoever disagrees must ‘wake up’

Labour MP speaks amid fears UK could become new battleground for abortion rights, with campaigners pushing for decriminalisation this year but anti-abortionists hitting back from other side

Tara Cobham
Tuesday 28 January 2025

The UK is seeing the “weaponisation of abortion” after anti-abortionists learned from effective tactics in the US over the past decade, a senior Labour backbencher has warned.

Stella Creasy warned she has personally seen the agenda of American anti-abortion groups now being pushed in parliament, citing the example of longtime Donald Trump ally Nigel Farage calling for parliament to debate imposing stricter limits on abortion last year.

Continued: https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/abortion-rights-stella-creasy-trump-farage-b2686637.html

28.01.2025

News

Amnesty International

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

UK – Women seeking abortions after using ‘natural’ contraception

Jan 13, 2025
Michelle Roberts, Digital health editor, BBC News

There has been a rise in the proportion of women seeking abortions despite using "natural" methods to prevent pregnancy, like fertility tracking apps, a study in England and Wales suggests.

The data, published in BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health, shows a "shift" in contraception use in the last five years, from "more reliable" hormonal contraceptives such as the pill, to "fertility awareness-based methods", say researchers.

Hormonal methods, including the mini pill, fell from 19% in 2018 to 11% in 2023 among tens of thousands of women.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c391nlxrv4vo

13.01.2025

News

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Dr Rosie McNee

fertility tracking apps

Lisa Hallgarten

MSI Reproductive Choices UK

natural contraception

Calls for abortion law change in England after couple sentenced for buying pills

Campaigners say case of Sophie Harvey and her partner exposes harmful and unnecessary criminalisation of women

Hannah Al-Othman and Steven Morris
Thu 19 Dec 2024

The prosecution of a young couple who were handed community orders at Gloucester crown court more than six years after the stillbirth of a baby has led to renewed calls for abortion law reform in England.

Sophie Harvey and Elliot Benham, both now 25, were originally arrested on suspicion of murder after they disposed of a stillborn foetus. The couple, who were each 19 at the time, had sought a termination for an unwanted pregnancy, before discovering that Harvey was “too far gone” – beyond the legal time limit – with gestation estimated to be at about 28 weeks and five days.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/19/calls-abortion-law-change-england-couple-sentenced-buying-pills

Medication abortions may be more painful than women expect, study finds

The pain is often described as similar to period cramps, catching some women off guard if it turns out to be more severe.

Dec. 17, 2024
By Kaitlin Sullivan

Many women are surprised by how much pain they experience during a medication abortion, a study published Tuesday in the journal BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health found.

More than 60% of abortions in the U.S. are medication abortions, meaning a person takes two drugs, often at home, to end a pregnancy. The study, which surveyed women in the U.K., found that many don’t feel prepared for the amount of pain they may feel during the procedure.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/medication-abortions-may-painful-women-expect-study-finds-rcna184554