Abortion law reform in the UK

BMJ 2025; 389 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1243
16 June 2025
Jonathan Lord, Nicola Packer, Tonia Antoniazzi, Janet Barter, Lesley Regan

Decriminalisation needed to protect women from persecution

Abortion is still a criminal offence in England and Wales, with access to abortion permitted under specific circumstances defined in the Abortion Act 1967. One of us (Nicola Packer) was recently acquitted after standing trial in England having been accused of an illegal abortion.1 The high profile case has highlighted deficiencies in the current legal framework, underscoring the need for decriminalisation.2

Packer was the sixth woman to have appeared in court since December 2022 charged with ending her own pregnancy, although around 100 have endured the trauma of criminal investigation in the past five years.34 In November 2020 she took abortion medication (mifepristone and misoprostol), prescribed over the phone during covid-19 lockdown. The gestation limit for most abortions in England is up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, and 10 weeks for self-administered medical abortion at home. Packer delivered the fetus at home unaware that she had been beyond 10 weeks’ gestation, with the head circumference and an examination by an obstetrician suggesting it was 22-24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/389/bmj.r1243

16.06.2025

Offences Against the Person Act

UK – Women’s access to contraception has never been worse, says Davina McCall as her new documentary airs

Vicky Jessop
Wed, June 7, 2023

Women are facing a “black hole” in funding for contraception-based research, according to a new Channel 4 documentary. Titled Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution, the show sees McCall follow up her successful documentary on the menopause by examining British women’s access to and relationship with contraception.

Over the course of the show, McCall – and a series of experts – explain how a lack of funding and research has made women strangers to the hormones they’re putting inside their bodies.

Continued: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/women-access-contraception-never-worse-050000184.html

07.06.2023

USA – Abortion Pills Are Very Safe and Effective, yet Government Rules Still Hinder Access

If the U.S. Supreme Court fails to uphold abortion rights this spring, more restrictions are likely

By Claudia Wallis | Scientific American
March 2022 Issue

Ever since it was approved in 2000 as an abortion pill, mifepristone has been regulated as if it were a dangerous substance. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration required doctors to be specially certified to prescribe it. Patients had to sign an agreement confirming that they had been counseled on its risks. Most onerously, the pill had to be given in person in an approved clinical setting—even though a second drug used to complete the abortion, misoprostol, could be taken at home. In addition, 17 U.S. states have passed laws requiring an ultrasound scan before mifepristone can be prescribed. Yet decades of study have shown that the medication is safe and that those restrictions are needless, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other medical groups. The rules have more to do with politics and ideology than with science.

Continued: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/abortion-pills-are-very-safe-and-effective-yet-government-rules-still-hinder-access/

UK – Will easy, early abortions become another casualty of the Tories’ culture war?

Doctors say a return to pre-Covid rules, where women had to get a clinic appointment, will leave thousands waiting too long

Polly Toynbee
Thu 10 Feb 2022

How long ago the Abortion Act of 1967 seems now, and yet the struggle for a woman’s right to control her own body never ends. Time and again this basic principle comes under attack from rightwing and religious lobbies forever seeking to limit and reverse it.

Now they are at it yet again. As the prime minister dashes to roll back all coronavirus legislation a month early to mollify his rebels, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, and his junior minister, Maggie Throup, will decide whether to maintain the abortion laws that were introduced as part of emergency Covid laws, allowing women to request earlier and easier terminations at home. If Javid and Throup instead return to the old abortion laws that were in place before Covid, where women had to have an in-person clinic visit in order to get an abortion, thousands of women will have to chase scarce clinical appointments, forcing many to wait beyond the time limit for medical abortions.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/10/abortions-tories-culture-war-doctors-covid-women

UK – It’s about time at-home abortions were legalised

Holly Hostettler-Davies
5 March 2021

In an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19, temporary legislation was introduced at the beginning of the pandemic to allow women easier access to medical terminations in their homes with the use of two pills.

A safe method to help meet demand?
Doctors are calling for at-home medical abortions to be made permanently legal here in the UK, after research found that between April and June 2020, 23,061 abortions took place at home, making up 43 per cent of all legal abortions.

Continued: https://www.shoutoutuk.org/2021/03/05/its-about-time-at-home-abortions-were-legalised/

05.03.2021

taking abortion pill at home

telemedicine abortion

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

UK – The majority of people want to make at-home abortions legal

It's an issue currently being debated by the government

by JENNIFER SAVIN
FEB 19, 2021

A ground-breaking new study of over 50,000 medical abortions has found that the at-home option (introduced temporarily during the pandemic, for those up to 10 weeks pregnant) was not only safe and effective, but allowed more people to easily access the healthcare they required. The results of the study have been released during an especially poignant time, as the government is currently examining whether or not to make at-home abortions a permanent option in England.

The study looked at abortions carried out in England, Scotland and Wales, both before and after the pandemic, and researchers, from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), MSI Reproductive Choices UK and the University of Texas at Austin, say their aim was to compare the data and see how the telemedicine service compares to the services previously available.

Continued: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a35558873/at-home-abortions-legal-study/

UK – State control over women’s bodies is an unforeseen outcome of the coronavirus crisis

State control over women's bodies is an unforeseen outcome of the coronavirus crisis
A U-turn on women’s ability to access home abortions and the cancellation of IVF means they have less say over their fertility

Emma Barnett
Sun 29 Mar 2020

It’s been quite a week to have a womb in the UK.

First, pregnant women were suddenly categorised as vulnerable, and advised to stay home by the government. But then some of them were told to come back into work by their employers – including the riskiest of all, the NHS.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/29/state-control-womens-bodies-covid-19-crisis

Kenya – Women shy away from morning-after pill for fear of being judged by health workers

Women shy away from morning-after pill for fear of being judged by health workers
Healthcare workers accused of making it uncomfortable for women to access contraceptive

By ANGELA OKETCH
Dec 18, 2019

How often do you buy an emergency contraceptive pill from either a chemist or a hospital? Do you need to consult the pharmacist to be given the pill or is it on a pay and take basis?

Maureen Kerubo says she had to change her picking point for the pills because of the many questions she was asked whenever she went to collect the pills. “Initially, I would walk to a government facility next to my house to pick the pill because of privacy issues, and it was also free.”

Continued: https://www.nation.co.ke/health/Judged-by-health-workers/3476990-5390596-y6ldhu/index.html