Women being investigated for illegal abortion after miscarriage

[Treaclewell]

Report on BBC News of 50 or 60 cases when previously 0, with police involvement. It seems atrocious at a time when mothers are likely to be grieving. It's like somewhere in South America or Poland. Why is it happening? Who is snitching?
The case reported wasn't good. A mother unexpectedly pregnant went to a clinic and was found to be past the cut off date. She had got medication on line. The police turned up. Months later, they told her they would not follow up.
A woman interviewed said it was important to carry on with the law like this "as a deterrent". If it was changed we would have many more babies lost. she said. I don't know who she represented, but can guess. What has changed to give these people power?

How desperate must she have been to knowingly try to do that once she was past the cut off?

It's awful. I'm someone that would not choose to have an abortion but there will always be a need for it and it needs to be accessible to stop tragedies like that happening.

BPAS have a campaign, there's a link on the Petitions board.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/5012202-bpas-time-to-act-ask-your-mp-to-vote

The woman stressed that she was honest with the police about ordering the pills, but she had not used them. She had certainly been panicking. To have got that far without knowing must have been a shock.

Absolutely awful. I have no idea how the world has regressed so much when it comes to women's rights.

I suspect that there are now many more people working in the NHS who are opposed to abortion and are (illegally I presume) reporting women to the police .

Yes, I think this may be why. People who see religion as more important than anything else. (All religion btw).

I think it's not just a case of religion but misogyny as well. How dare any woman have a say over her own body type of thing.

Do we have more misogynists working in the NHS now? Part of me would have thought that many of the old sexist dinosaurs have now left. But I suppose there's the rise of the new woke male bullies and maybe they're challenging women's rights to abortion along with women's right to sex based health care, language etc?

We may have more religious staff working in the NHS than previously due to overseas recruitment no longer being EU based.

Could be. I think as well, there are misogynists of all ages and always will be. Andrew Tate is only in his 30s and his followers are mostly younger men.

We have a law and the law is there for a reason. Our cut off is, if anything, longer than most women would want.

We are in a democracy and anyone can lobby for the abortion limit to be raised or removed all together, but there is vanishingly little support for it.

Calling something misogynistic does not make it so. The cut off limit is what we, as a society, have decided is the best compromise between the pregnant woman’s rights and the foetus’s (limited) rights. Again, if you took all men out of the equation, the limit would probably be lowered and not raised.

Generally plenty of discretion and mercy is shown by judges at the sentencing stage, but you cannot just ignore a crime because a small subsection of the population believes it shouldn’t be a crime.

The Royal College of Midwives has confirmed that it is NOT in the public interest to report or prosecute women for terminations after the cut off. A woman’s body, a woman’s choice.

Surely the sudden uptick is because of the change in law that allows the pill to be posted?

Actually, I'm not quite clear on the situation with posting pills out.

One article says scheme was due to be stopped - I remember a campaign to keep it - BPAS seems to still do it ...

At any rate, I'd imagined the sudden rash of prosecutions was due to this shift in the delivery mechanism. There was concern that some women might have been forced into abortion using the postal method which was a worrying possibility - some were saying that HCPs were better able to screen for abuse and dv etc if they attended in person. It wasn't quite as clear cut as made out, iirc.

I’m sure I heard on R4 recently that the Drs union were saying this reporting had got out of hand and had to stop. Apologies I can’t remember more details but it shocked me that it was happening in the first place.

what has changed is huge funding from Bible-bashing organisations in the US who have decided they are now going to target the UK

Here we go,

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/illegal-abortions-prosecutions-uk-police-royal-college

How are these organisations affecting the police? Is this pure surmisal?

I'd imagined the change in rules was more likely to impact UK police.