What the hell is going on in the UK? Police are checking periods apps to look for abortions

[Soubriquet]

They have defended their actions and said they are looking for illegal abortions

link

They are also checking women’s houses

Under his eye indeed

I don't know why the investigation happened so quickly. It's clearly not standard practice.

The police initially attended to help with the baby, but started investigating when they were there. Why we don't know, and will never know. Did they see something suspicious? Did mums account of going into labour raise suspicions? Was there already a red flag on her file?

Its likely that her maternity notes would have been brought up v quickly, which presumably have shown that (a) mum only found out a few weeks before she was pregnant (b) wanted to abort but was too late (c) probably contained information about her state of mind in the few days/couple of weeks before the abortion. Maybe she mentioned to her midwife for she was struggling with continuing the pregnancy and considered ending it herself but changed her mind. Honestly, there was likely some form of warning flags on her case even before her premature labour.

A line has been drawn. One that allows a woman to abort 2/3rds the way through her pregnancy. But that line does not allow for unregulated, unlimited, DIY abortion. We shouldn't be encouraging backstreet DIY abortions, along with all the problems and risks they cause.

Ps: what if in this case, it was the Sammy's partner that laced her food/drink with abortion drugs? I bet you'd want it to be investigated then! How do you determine who may be under suspicion at the beginning?

Or alternatively: was there a culture change that has been driving the increase in prosecutions, prompted by the US forced birth movement and the way it is funding organisations right here in the UK?

I just wonder why people like you think this law change is going to suddenly make hordes of women rush to have illegal late term abortions? Because really, it's not. It's just going to protect those women who are currently being caught in an overzealous wave of law enforcement.

I would also ask you: how do you think it benefits anyone at all to put these women through the hellish trauma of prosecution and possibly jail? I'd much rather the police focused their limited resources on properly prosecuting violence against women and girls.

I work for the police. This is bollocks.

Sigh.

1. these investigations are more common now because obtaining abortion pills is easy and legal and they can be used (and early stashed) at home. This wasn't the case pre covid. 10 years ago, a DIY late term abortion would have been difficult to do and would put the woman's life massively at risk. Now it takes a lie on a phone call, and is less physically invasive. That's why we are having these cases now.

2. do you really think that the proposed change in the law will make any difference to whether some of these cases are investigated or not? Where a baby is said to have been stillborn at home, they would still be an investigation to establish whether the baby was born alive and then killed. Because even if DIY abortion is legal, murder is not.

3. plenty of options already exist for legal termination of pregnancy. Risking a post viability infant being born alive at home and then left to die is not something I want the law to encourage. DIY abortions are bad for everyone, and they can cause a child lifelong disabilities and suffering.

4. If a woman has a DIY late abortion that either means the child (who was perfectly viable with a little help) is born alive or suffocates to death, I'm absolutely in favour of prosecuting. Just as it's I would be had she suggested the baby at birth, it's killed it a year later. I don't routinely think we should avoid possession just because we are women.

YANBU op

That's been proved many times on this thread. However, that doesn't fit in with some people's agenda. So the truth just gets completely ignored.

Apps are handy. I had an X-ray yesterday and was asked the first date of my last menstrual period. I could pull it up there and then. Useful when you are perimenopausal and irregular.

It analyzes things for you and shows your fertile window and when you expect your next period

Ok so say you use the app on and off and forget about it

Then you go to the abortion provider and tell them you last had a period 7 weeks ago as you remember bleeding at a social occasion happening then.
Then they give you the pills and it turns out you were actually 20 weeks pregnant and that blood you saw must have been spotting not a proper period.
Then foetus comes out looking like a dead baby you call an ambulance as you don't know what to do and you're traumatized.
The ambulance calls the police who accuse you of lying and use the app on your phone as evidence that you knew you were heavily pregnant.
You then do to prison.

Are you on with that as this is the status quo and happening to women now?

I wonder what an alternative is. If mum has to labour anyway, then perhaps after a certain point (35 weeks?) offer an induction or elective sec section to get baby out safely and it can be adopted? Then mum is only 'forced' to stay pregnant for ten more weeks?

The 15 year old who was investigated (mentioned upthread and in the Cosmo article) was the father of the baby also investigated as she was under age?!

Of course not. That's why we need the change. The status quo allows men to get away with whatever they do, while women are punished.

Surely the best option in light of all this is just to not get pregnant?

We always hear on here that if men don't want to be fathers they need to take personal responsibility for their own contraception. Surely the same is true here.

Can you please point me to the 100% failsafe perfect and side effect free contraception that exists and that every single woman irrespective of preexisting health conditions can use? Because I know two people who were doubling up and nevertheless got pregnant.

Oh, and advising abstinence, vasectomy and sterilisation doesn't count.

See this is the thing though There are plenty of us child free by choice women around BUT WE GET MOANED AT FOR THAT AS WELL

I started to use when peri hit because my period became irregular as hell and i wanted to be sure there wasn’t something wrong on top of peri- ie intermenstrual bleeding which is a symptom of womb cancer.

Not to mention that if you are anything but borderline peri, you will be told that you can't be sterilised 'in case you change your mind'.

It’s somewhat irrelevant though, as the issue is a total abuse of police power.

I use my own head. Been regular as clockwork my whole adult life. Even after babies I went back to the same week of the month.

I don't really want kids but I've not found that people moan at me. I've defo had comments along the line of "when you've got your own kids" though. However, my sister has three so I'm kinda off the hook in terms of providing grandchildren. 🤣