Police could search women's homes and phones after pregnancy loss

[IwantToRetire]

Police have been issued guidance on how to search women’s homes for abortion drugs and check their phones for menstrual cycle tracking apps after unexpected pregnancy loss.

New guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) on “child death investigation” advises officers to search for “drugs that can terminate pregnancy” in cases involving stillbirths. The NPCC, which sets strategic direction for policing across the country UK, also suggests a woman’s digital devices could be seized to help investigators “establish a woman’s knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy”. That could include checking a woman’s internet searches, messages to friends and famil y, and health apps, “such as menstrual cycle and fertility trackers”, it states.

Details are also provided for how police could bypass legal requirements for a court order to obtain medical records about a woman’s abortion from NHS providers.

Abortion law in the UK is based on the Offences Against the Person Act from 1861. In recent years, an increasing number of women have been investigated and prosecuted under this law. The Abortion Act of 1967 allows women to end their pregnancies under medical supervision up to 24 weeks, or beyond in certain circumstances, such as if the life of the mother is at risk or if the foetus has a serious abnormality.

The guidance replace s a 2014 document that did not mention investigating stillbirths, but had one mention of investigating women who may have had an illegal abortion. The new guidance, published in January and developed by a sub-group of the NPCC’s Homicide Working Group alongside the College of Policing, National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police, covers the scenario over several pages.

The lead authors were Ch Sup t Liz Hughes of Avon and Somerset police force; Det Sup t Jon Holmes of Lancashire; DCS David Ashton of Durham; Ch Sup t Fiona Bitters of Hampshire and Isle of Wight; Sonya Baylis, of the National Crime Agency; and D S Robert Simmons of Suffolk.

Article continues at https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/police-could-search-homes-and-seize-phones-after-sudden-pregnancy-loss

I have said this before but it bears repeating:

Despite what many people think, we don’t have abortion rights in most of the UK and it's a big problem.

Women don’t get the final say over whether we can have an abortion or not. We are allowed an abortion if we satisfy doctors that we meet fairly restrictive grounds. Otherwise we commit a serious crime.

The grounds have been quite loosely interpreted for the last 30ish years, which has made it seem a less urgent fight than it ought to be, but it would be easy for them to be reined in without any changes to legislation. And these guidelines really highlight the need to stop being as lackadaisical about the state of the law here.

We need to decriminalize abortion for women properly. We don't have to liberalise the criteria under which doctors are allowed to perform abortions to do this (though I'd like to), we just need to take this draconian threat away from women.

Wonder if the NSPCC have given any consideration at all to the impact of investigating mothers who have had a pregnancy loss on the children who actually exist whom she is already looking after.

Were there any women officers present when this was rolled out who've experienced miscarriage, and did they point out that this is fucking insane?

I haven’t read the article but I’m willing to bet this policy was designed to catch men trying to induce abortions in their partners without their knowledge.

I think that's a very generous / optimistic interpretation, and from headline it's framing women as criminals

That sounds horrifying.

If anyone had told us ten years ago that a Western nation would soon be able to seize and search a woman's property after she experienced pregnancy loss, what could we have possibly replied?

There are no words for how traumatically cruel this will be for women who are already experiencing the horror of miscarriage and stillbirth. Have they consulted women with that lived experience, or organisations whose work supports them when drafting up their protocols?

This is horrific.

I heard about women in America deleting period tracking apps and I really didn't think it would come to this in the UK. Despite the evidence in front of me of the police's continuing commitment to misogyny.

Agree the law needs to be changed, also astonished that the police are committing resources even to drafting this protocol when kids are getting stabbed on the streets.
Priorities? Obviously not women and children

This is how the media works, they lead with a horrifying headline that misrepresents facts. After reading the article I get the impression that this is aimed at illegal late term abortions. This is probably more common amongst trafficked and abused women and could be carried out against their will. I can understand why the police would want to investigate the circumstances of a late term pregnancy loss if happened to a woman they considered at risk

Surely they can’t possibly be expecting to do this when a women has gone through the trauma and devastation of a miscarriage or stillborn that has been a tragic event? Why on earth would they do that? I’m assuming it would be when they suspect something is amiss in the narrative of what’s happened in a certain circumstance?

As the PP, this is safe guarding for vulnerable women and women of domestic violence and those which are being trafficked.
i have worked with midwives and the rate of coercive control in which these women are under is through the roof in the last 10 yrs! It’s a massive problem. In which some men do not let the woman go to the toilet alone within the hospital . That sounds alarm bells . Also some have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol. This is to protect women.

I would have said, "I don't believe you."

But the woman recently in the news was not trafficked her experience ld this kind of intrusion.

Honestly if I were uncertain about keeping a pregnancy in the early days, then later experiences miscarriage, I’d feel very vulnerable.

We would have called the teller a paranoid conspiracy theorist..I strongly believe it's going to get so much worse in our times. If you aren't already strength-training and learning a martial art, I really think you - and all girls and women - should be. God knows what's next.
*but probably not GKR.

Which is by design. This movement profits by making us more fearful, more anxious, less likely to rock the god-awful boat.

?

It really isn't.

So that's why they're searching the woman's devices? Because... why exactly?

Not the NSPCC, the NPCC.

This is to protect women

I just can't bring myself to believe this.

Read. The. Article.

Of course it isn't; the poster is spouting rubbish without even having read the article.

I think we've seen this tactic used to desensitise us to worse to come. We accept the shocking headline, few rise up in protest, and the architects learn that they can push the boundary of decency yet further.