A woman who had a DIY home abortion has described her traumatic ordeal, saying: “It’s not a group of cells, it is actually a baby because I’ve seen it. It is not what they tell you it is. It is a life.”

DIY home abortion regulations were implemented in Britain in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Women can get chemical abortion drugs following a phone or video call. They then perform their own abortion at home with no medical supervision or support.

Speaking to March for Life UK, Natalia described her horrific ordeal with DIY home abortion.

Manipulated into abortion

Natalia recalled how she was emotionally attached to her unborn child. However, her boyfriend and friends insisted that she should have an abortion, telling her that a baby would “ruin her life”.

Distraught, Natalia visited an abortion clinic twice, each time being unable to go through with the abortion. During her third visit, staff at the clinic supplied her with abortion drugs, which she was told to take at home.

Natalia kept the abortion drugs for several weeks, before being pressured into taking them.

She said: “My friends were telling me that I just needed to take it. Looking back on it I can’t believe I listened to them. It’s almost like I was manipulated into it. I don’t know why they didn’t stop me. Why couldn’t they see that I was hurting? I remember saying so many times, ‘don’t make me do it. I don’t want to do it.’”

Lonely and traumatic ordeal

After several weeks, Natalia consumed the abortion drugs. Alone in her bedroom, she suffered the DIY abortion process.

She said: “It feels like you’re being stabbed in the stomach.

“I remember getting to the toilet, it was unbearable, the pain. And that’s when I passed my baby. I looked down and I saw him. It wasn’t like a heavy period, it was like a baby. I couldn’t look anymore. It’s a child, not a bit of blood.

“I remember falling to my knees and everything was so blurry. I had gone into my bedroom and threw up again. I just laid in my bed bleeding through the mattress. I lay there for about three days on my own, not wanting to speak to anyone.”

“I was never told about the risks”

Natalia deeply regrets her abortion. She said: “I was never told about the risks that there are, emotionally and physically. I wasn’t aware of them. I was never offered a scan, so it was never like they actually knew how far along I was.

“It’s just crazy now that I look back on it, and I just think how I was even able to take those tablets home. I mean, for all they know, I could’ve been so far gone [that] it could’ve caused some serious damage.

“It’s not just a group of cells. It is actually a baby, because I’ve seen it. It’s not what they tell you it is. It is a life.”

Women speaking out

SPUC has been reporting on the growing number of women speaking out against DIY home abortion after sharing their experiences.

Sophie, who had a DIY home abortion in 2020, said that information about DIY home abortion was withheld from her, and she has called for institutions such as Marie Stopes and BPAS to be “called out”.

Kirsty said that her DIY home abortion was like a “horror movie” and her life has been a “downhill struggle” ever since.

600 medics in the UK have recently called for the DIY home abortion scheme to be scrapped, with some obstetricians/gynaecologists calling it a “disservice to women”.

You can find SPUC’s briefing on DIY home abortion here.