The lack of safeguarding for underage girls having abortions in a British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) centre in Somerset is being called out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC, a health and safety watchdog, conducted an unannounced inspection of the BPAS Taunton Central abortion facility on 6 January 2022. It published its findings on 30 March.
Among the issues flagged by the report is the failure of the centre to make use of a “specific paediatric early warning score tool” required for children under the age of 16 years undergoing surgical abortions. Failure to use this tool meant that girls under the age of consent were treated as adults and evidence of sexual abuse might have been overlooked.
The CQC published its report on the same day that Parliament voted to make the “DIY” home abortion a permanent feature of England’s abortion regime. Several MPs voiced their concerns regarding the safety of the scheme and the increased danger posed to women who will undergo abortions without an in-person consultation.
During the debate, Carla Lockhart (DUP MP for Upper Bann) cited figures compiled by the National Network of Designated Health Care Professionals for Children, which recorded 47 incidents since the start of the scheme, in March 2020, in which medical abortions took place well beyond the 10-week limit. Six cases (approximately 12%) involved girls under 16, and in half of those, the aborted babies had shown signs of life at the time of delivery.
A catalogue of health and safety abuses
This is not the first occasion that the CQC has raised concerns over the safety of women using BPAS facilities. A 2017 report found that the NHS trust in Liverpool had carried out a review after 16 serious incidents related to the BPAS Merseyside centre were recorded between January 2013 and February 2016.
In September 2019, the watchdog found six cases of women at the same facility who required urgent medical attention due to complications and were transferred from the service to another healthcare provider between January and December 2018.
Then, in February 2020, the CQC revealed a catalogue of health and safety abuses at BPAS Doncaster abortion centre, in particular the inappropriate treatment of girls as young as 13 undergoing surgical abortions.
Finally, in September 2021, BPAS facilities in Merseyside, Doncaster and Middlesbrough were put into “special measures” because of serious concerns over patient safety and the failure to apply appropriate consent procedures.
The issues raised in the Taunton report should, therefore, be seen within the context of a broader pattern of failure across the British abortion industry.
Perpetuating sexual abuse
On 12 April 2022, Greater Manchester Police announced that it had settled out of court with three women from the Rochdale area who had launched legal action against the force. As children, the women were repeatedly raped by gangs of British Pakistani men. Inquiries into the organised sexual abuse of hundreds of girls in state care found that the police in several regions of England allowed systematic abuse to continue for years due to the fear of being accused of racism.
Yet, the story told by these women and similar victims of child abuse also demonstrate how the failure of the abortion industry to safeguard underage girls has also helped perpetuate the sexual exploitation of minors. The CQC’s inspection of the BPAS Taunton central abortion facility indicates that this problem has not gone away.