Woman jailed for two years for an (alleged) illegal abortion. What the hell is going on.

[TheLoneRager]

I have long believed abortion is legal in the UK and did not understand the nuance that it does, in fact remain illegal, but is allowed under certain circumstances, up to 23 weeks 6 days, two doctors Garth at continuing the pregnancy would be harmful to the mother's physical or mental health and a few other limitations, explained in the article linked.

All of a sudden there seems to be a rash of stories about women being prosecuted for illegal abortions in various circumstances, which is not something I have ever heard of before. Just look at the graph in the article. These prosecutions have gone from 1 or 2 in 2018 to 30 in 2022.
Meanwhile abortion providers report police demanding patient files on "fishing expeditions".
And hospital staff are presumably reporting women who appear to have had a stillbirth for investigation Incase this was an illegal abortion.

I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist but this doesn't feel like a coincidence.

What the hell is going on?

Laura’s story: jailed for having an abortion in Britain.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a6b76dfe-14f5-11ed-a669-519b582f91b7?shareToken=e3beac680aa389a8bef6cb9f2fd8bf533_

Note: I put "alleged" in the title. Laura was convicted and served two years so my "alleged" is possibly not quite accurate but the circumstances of her conviction are also questionable so that's why I used that word.

Anyone?

Thank you for this OP - I agree this is worrying. Going to read more before commenting further.

I wonder how many individuals are behind the 30 initial reports.

I really wouldn’t be surprised if this was one very motivated individual.

Interesting thought @

@FreudayNight
Sent too soon

Just noticed my typo in the op - "two doctors Garth at" should be "two doctors agree that"

@FreudayNight - I thought that too. One anti-abortion nut finding themselves in a position of power in the police force is not at all outside the realms of possibility. Terrifying.

I don't get the so called "fishing expeditions" to abortion providers.
Presumably someone must have alerted police about particular women whose details the police were seeking. By definition, unless abortion providers are acting outside the law (in some circumstances) a woman having an abortion through one of these providers must have had a legal abortion so why would the police be interested?
And surely they would need a court order or some sort of official permission to be able to demand someone's medical records?

Also it wasn't clear to me how BPAS passed on details - it says they passed on details "when they had consent" - does that mean they obtained the woman's permission to pass on details? I sure as dammit wouldn't be giving consent for this. And why did they even do that? If this was clearly a "fishing expedition" they should have sent the police packing with a clear NO.

It's all very concerning.

I also didn't know that Jeremy Hunt, previous health minister, had suggested a 12 week limit for abortion.

We need the law tightening up so that abortion is properly decriminalising and women's right to abortion is settled in law.

Post Roe v Wade I think we can all appreciate that we cannot take our rights for granted.

@TheLoneRager - I was confused about the points you raised too. Surely the police would need a court order? Unless the women were not given the full information before agreeing to them being handed over.

As for how they knew, I wonder if they are relying on reports from women’s partners/friends/family or even more scary have people in healthcare settings feeding them information. I wouldn’t put it past these anti-abortion groups to plant people. There is a stillbirth register too which I wondered if they were looking there to find women to investigate but that wouldn’t explain going to abortion providers for the records.

@TheLoneRager Jeremy Hunt surprised me, Nadine Dorries less so, she genuinely believes God made her an MP to carry out his will. She is US levels of religious right.

I can certainly imagine ex partners/family making reports to police. And I suppose if someone has been reported the police would have to investigate. But if a woman used one of the licensed abortion providers that should be where any investigation stopped surely unless someone is seeking to prove that these providers are acting outside the law and actually trying to harass/trigger an investigation of the providers. If there is reason for concern about the providers then surely the correct route is via a CQC investigation.

It's all very concerning and definitely seems to be something new.

I doubt the law will be tightened up. The government want to go the opposite way with it, given they’ve been very careful in removing sexual and reproductive health and rights’ and ‘bodily autonomy’ wording from the multinational statement committing to the fundamental rights of women and girls.

humanists.uk/2022/07/19/abortion-deleted-from-uk-government-organised-international-human-rights-statement/

After Roe v Wade 61 tories also voted against extending abortion access in NI.

This is why I don’t understand when people say they don’t vote Labour because they “don’t know what a woman is”. Tories might be able to define a woman but they certainly don’t care about us or removing our rights.

It is always easier for women to be prosecuted for just about anything than the men can ever be for violence grooming trafficking or abusing. What good was done by imprisoning her? Nothing will change for desperate women.

Awful story, so sad. Should have been the boyfriend that was prosecuted.

But - the baby was 30 weeks old. That’s 40cm long, and capable of surviving outside the womb, with a short NICU stay. She killed it.

I’m all in favour of women’s right to safe abortion of early pregnancy, but this was a fully developed baby that was killed. She doesn’t seem to accept that she did anything wrong.

Agree. Terribly sad, but not an abortion really as the baby was 30 weeks old.

She did not realise she was that far along and was under coercive control of another person who obtained the pills and forced her to take them. To do "something wrong" one must have the capacity to make rational and independent decisions - there is no evidence that she had such capacity. Diminished capacity is an acceptable defence in law. She was let down by every service before and after her conviction, and probably had no proper legal support during her trial. Let's not "convict" her again here. Let's place the blame where is lies, with her boyfriend and with a system that continues to penalise women who are victims of men.

OP I agree the account is horrible, and the fishing expeditions with BPAS are unconscionable. But the graph does not state that there were 30 reports in 2022.

It is a chart of cumulative reports. And it’s got 6 monthly data points from the looks of it. So they have 2(ish) reports in the second half of 2018, but that 30 figure for the last half of 2022 is the cumulative total between the second half of 2018 and q1 of 2022. So far (according to a footnote, 2022 only contains figures for q1) there have only been a couple of reports.

Unless there was more explanatory text I think the chart is very poor reporting by the Times and, I would say, a deliberate attempt to mislead readers into assuming it meant exactly what you suggested. But it doesn’t.

So the fact abortion remains illegal in the UK and that results in women being imprisoned is something we should be aware fo and fight against. But the idea pressure is being exerted somewhere to increase the extent of these prosecutions doesn’t seem to be supported but the number of reports over the last 4 years.

Thanks @NumberTheory what a rookie mistake not noticing that word cumulative!

Nonetheless it does seem to be a relatively recent increase. Having worked as a midwife for twenty years (not on gynae wards obv so wouldn't necessarily be involved in such a case but one does tend to hear on the hospital rumour mill) and I've never heard of this happening.
I believe this probably coincides with the use of the abortion pill at home, which, iirc started being prescribed after a telephone consultation and no ultrasound examination to confirm dates during the pandemic in 2020 and after consultation I believe this is now a continuing practice.

I have had a quick look through the BPAS website about this. There is mention of the possibility of the dates being wrong and legal issues.

www.bpas.org/abortion-care/abortion-treatments/the-abortion-pill/remote-treatment/

Still, it seems as if someone is reporting these women to the police, triggering the fishing expeditions. Abusive boyfriends/partners/ family would seem to be obvious suspects.
If this is happening due to the use of home treatment then it needs looking at in the wider picture if the risks/appropriateness of provision of this service not criminalising women who use it.
There is also the issue, I imagine, that in some cases the pills will have been obtained over the internet but not from a legal supplier.
None the less, pursuing and criminalising women is not the way to go.

I am also shocked at the treatment of Laura, in the story. It would seem that the hospital were very quick to call the police.
Unless Laura it her b/f told the hospital about the use of the pills (which they probably did) I'm not sure why an illegal abortion would have been suspected rather than a premature birth, haemorrhage, still birth.
Even with the knowledge of the use of the pills I would expect a hospital to get a full history and then look at referring to social articles/safeguarding and discussion with this hospital legal department. This might still mean referral to the police ultimately but it sounds as if they were very quick off the mark in this and I find that very concerning.

I disagree that late term and illegal abortions should be decriminalised - we we don't want lots of unregistered unsafe abortion providers popping up! But cases like these are so clearly mishandled. She was scared to say anything about her abusive boyfriend? Well why didn't they ask? This isn't the US, there is no reason (other than abuse) for a woman who believes she is 10 weeks pregnant to buy dodgy internet pills. We have free, accessible, legal abortion.

Yes, she accidentally aborted a 30 week foetus and again, I do think we need limits because a 30 week foetus is well past viability and had she been able to access medical care for a scan she would almost certainly have done things differently. But again this was because of the boyfriend.

It's absolutely right that situations like these need cracking down on, and thankfully it looks like they are few and far between as that graph is cumulative. But it should be the illegal providers of these pills and even more so the abusers who are prosecuted.

This isn't really an abortion case (or shouldn't be). It's a serious mishandling of an abuse case that has made the (one of the) victims into the perpetrator. That is the issue here.

The Labour MP Jess Phillips has called for Laura’s conviction to be quashed. “This is exactly why abortion cannot sit within criminal law,” she says. “The story would be a different one had just somebody with training spoken to her at any point — somebody who was advocating on her behalf and who understood abuse control, coercion, women’s reproductive coercion. At any point, had she just interacted with somebody with any training, she wouldn’t have ended up in prison, so it is entirely a failure of the system to learn about women’s lives.”

It's this.

There does have to be laws and rules but they cannot function effectively in a society that doesn't also seek to find the truth before condemning people.

Tories might be able to define a woman but they certainly don’t care about us or removing our rights.

This, always.