Yesterday, 29 November, Baroness Eaton’s At Home Medical Abortion (Review) Bill, seeking a review into the risks to women of at-home abortion, had its First Reading in the House of Lords. The Bill would ultimately decide whether in-person medical appointments for abortions should be restored.
The Bill, if passed, would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the risks associated with at-home early medical abortions, also known as DIY home abortion, or pills by post.
Risks that the review would scrutinise include women’s health, coerced abortion and the consequences of having no registered medical practitioner examine the pregnant woman to verify the gestational age of her unborn baby.
The review, which only applies to England and Wales, would be published and presented to Parliament within six months of the Act being passed.
Women’s health and well-being at risk
The Bill follows the introduction of DIY at-home abortion in 2020 during lockdown. While the scheme was supposed to be a temporary measure, MPs voted to make it permanent in March 2022, ignoring a public consultation in which 70% of respondents said DIY abortion should end immediately.
Since the introduction of DIY abortion, SPUC has warned repeatedly that abortion ideologues were ignoring the risks to women’s health inherent in allowing them to take potentially dangerous abortifacients at home and without supervision.
It was later found that 999 calls for abortion complications surged by 54% in 2020. In that same year, over 10,000 women who took DIY abortion pills required hospital treatment, as reported by SPUC.
Government data also revealed that in 2021 medical abortion (abortion pills) had a complication rate of 33% for women 13 to 19 weeks pregnant, rising to 48% for aborted pregnancies over 20 weeks.
Medical abortion accounted for 86% of all abortions in England and Wales between January and June 2022, with 54% of those abortions taking place at home.
End DIY abortion NOW, SPUC tells Government
Alithea Williams, SPUC’s Public Policy Manager, said: “DIY at-home abortion has been a disaster for unborn children, now being aborted at unprecedented rates in the UK, and for women whose health and well-being have been put at even greater risk from unsupervised abortions.
“While there is already a vast amount of evidence underscoring the risks of DIY abortion, a dedicated review into just how irresponsible and dangerous the policy is for women would make it clear to the public and MPs that this scheme must finally end.
“Since 2020, cynical abortion providers and ideologues have manipulated the arrests resulting from DIY abortion, a policy that they championed, for their own ends, using the Carla Foster case to argue for the decriminalisation of abortion, potentially with no limits at all.
“Because DIY abortion is harmful, morally unacceptable and unsustainable, SPUC, not wanting to see women and unborn babies exposed to further menace, is calling on the Health Secretary to scrap the policy. To find out more about SPUC’s campaign, please click here.
“For too long, abortion apologists, who prioritise their own harmful ideology over women’s safety, have been allowed to cover up the truth about this policy. Government must do its duty and protect its citizens from those who only care about increasing abortion at all costs.”
End DIY abortion: Justice for Baby Lily
SPUC recently launched a campaign urging supporters to write to the Health Secretary and call for an end to DIY abortion.
SPUC asks you to join the Society’s campaign calling on the Health Secretary to end this deadly policy. You can order postcards by clicking here.