May 4, 2024
Kate Morgan, Communities correspondent
A woman who had to travel from Wales to England for an abortion says it made her experience more traumatic. Katie, 35 and from Cardiff, was thrilled to be pregnant with her first child, but a routine scan found a significant abnormality meaning her baby could not survive.
An abortion locally would have involved giving birth in a labour ward full of mothers and newborn babies, and Katie had to travel over the border for a surgical procedure.
Campaigners stress ‘abortion is healthcare, not a crime - we should not be policing people’s bodies’
Tara Cobham
June 17, 2023
Thousands of protesters calling for the decriminalisation of abortion have marched in central London following outrage at the conviction of a woman for ending her pregnancy beyond the legal cut-off of 24 weeks.
Campaigners stressed that “abortion is healthcare, not a crime”, after Carla Foster, 44, was this week sentenced to 28 months in jail, having obtained drugs to end her pregnancy at 32 to 34 weeks during lockdown.
Pro-choice and anti-abortion supporters face dilemmas arising from the recent tragic case, making it difficult to press ministers for a change in the law
Alexandra Topping and Ben Quinn
Sat 17 Jun 2023
To those familiar with the fraught battle lines around one of society’s most emotive issues, the reaction of anti-abortion campaigners in the hours after a woman was jailed for procuring a late abortion appeared muted.
Key voices from major anti-abortion groups were conspicuously absent in the coverage, while pro-choice campaigners’ calls for decriminalisation were tempered by the insistence that they were not calling for freely available abortion at any stage of a pregnancy.
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.
BY ARMANI SYED
JUNE 13, 2023
U.K. abortion rights groups are planning large demonstrations on Saturday outside London’s Royal Courts of Justice, after a woman was controversially jailed on Monday under an 1861 law for using drugs to induce a medical abortion past legal term limits.
The case has sparked outcry and calls for an overhaul of reproductive justice laws in the U.K., as well as the full decriminalization of abortion.
Continued: https://time.com/6286943/abortion-uk-law-jailed-woman/
Mitigation plea signed by medical groups was sent to judge, while BPAS chief executive said sentence was ‘shocking and appalling’
Tobi Thomas
Mon 12 Jun 2023
Campaigners and MPs have reacted with outrage to a woman being sentenced to more than two years in prison for procuring drugs to induce an abortion after the legal limit.
The mother of three received the medication under the “pills by post” scheme, which was introduced during the Covid pandemic for unwanted pregnancies up to 10 weeks, after a remote consultation.
My abortion politicised me, says WEP leader Mandu Reid
Women’s Equality party head says her decision would have been different if UK parenting policies had been more progressive
Nosheen Iqbal
Sat 27 Apr 2019
Mandu Reid, the new leader of the Women’s Equality party (WEP), has spoken publicly about the impact of her abortion and why it compelled her to enter politics.
In an interview with the Observer, Reid said her decision to have a termination at 33 had not been “an easy choice” but one made because she “couldn’t balance being a single mother and hold on to my career aspirations”.
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/27/mandu-reid-wep-abortion-politicised-me
Wales to allow women to take second abortion pill at home
Women in Wales will be allowed to take the second medication needed in a medical termination to be taken at home.
Friday 29 June 2018
By Sanya Burgess, news reporter
Wales is to allow women to take the abortion pill at home to avoid bleeding and pain in public. The change in the rules will allow women to take the second abortion pill at home, announced Welsh Health Secretary Vaughan Gething.
Guidance will be issued to health boards in Wales today to allow misoprostol, the second medication needed in a medical termination, to be self-administered at home.
Continued: https://news.sky.com/story/wales-to-allow-abortion-pill-at-home-11419927
Without At-Home Abortion Pills, Women Risk Miscarrying In Public
Wales announced plans to follow Scotland and allow women to take the second abortion pill at home - when will the rest of the UK join?
19/04/2018
By Rachel Moss
Beth Redmond, 25, from Merseyside, was in her first year of university when she became pregnant and decided to have an abortion. Miles from home, with no close friends and family nearby, she was forced to pay someone from her course, whom she barely knew, £20 to drive her the 45-minute journey to the abortion clinic, because her doctor had advised her against taking public transport.
As soon as Beth left the clinic her miscarriage symptoms began, she experienced pain and heavy bleeding. “It was like period pain but 10 times worse, and with the added anxiety of being in a near stranger’s car, for 45 minutes,” she tells HuffPost UK. “I crawled from the car to my room and stayed there for a couple of days.”
I had to risk miscarrying in a taxi after taking an abortion pill. Women should be allowed to take it at home
These journeys back from the hospital are a completely unnecessary ordeal, and the government can change this overnight
Claudia Craig
Apr 2, 2018
One year ago, I found out I was pregnant. I was a 22-year-old student and I called my GP. They told me not to worry as I wouldn’t need to see a midwife for about eight weeks. “No”, I said, “you don’t understand – I’m pregnant and I don’t want to be.”
The phone was silent for a few seconds: “Oh. We don’t deal with that sort of thing.”
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