Kevin Duffy, Independent public health consultant

Dr Lord, medical director at MSI Reproductive Choices, told the BBC that he knows of up to 60 women facing criminal inquiries for suspected abortion crime in England and Wales since 2018, compared with almost zero before. However, Home Office data show only a small uptick in 2022/23, compared to the eight years before that; the official data simply do not support Lord’s claim of an ‘unprecedented’ increase in these police investigations and prosecutions.

The Home Office publishes annual data for the numbers and categories of police recorded crimes and outcomes. There are two offence codes that could be used when police investigate a suspected breach of the abortion law; Offence 14 – Procuring illegal abortion and Offence 4.3 – Intentional destruction of a viable unborn child. Over the last nine financial years, up to March 2023, the average annual total of these two offences combined has been nineteen; in 2022/23, the total was twenty eight. So, yes a small but notable increase, though on current trend, it does look like the total in 2023/24 will drop back from this high.

These are very small numbers compared to the annual numbers of legal abortions, estimated to be 250,000 in 2022. That of course should not cause us to be dismissive of the real trauma suffered by the few women who are, in these rare cases, investigated. The BBC’s “File on 4” team has just completed a report in which they met with a number of women who have been investigated by the police. These women fall into two distinct groups.

Investigation analysis 

The first, like Sammy, are those who are investigated by the police after having suffered a natural miscarriage or stillbirth. These investigations, most of which end up being dropped with no further action, undoubtably cause significant trauma and stress for women who are already suffering from their pregnancy loss. These cases need to be handled more sensitively and brought to a resolution much more quickly – the abortion law does not need to be changed, the police investigation and prosecution processes need to be improved.

The second group, like Katie, are those who have broken the abortion law, usually by obtaining and using pills-by-post after telling the abortion provider, during the telephone consultation, that their pregnancy is less than the legal limit of 9-weeks-6-days. A few women might do so when they mistakenly think that they are early in their pregnancy and a few others deliberately mislead the provider, knowing that they are more than ten weeks’ pregnant. For these cases, the abortion law does need to be changed, but not in the way that Lord et al want. Rather than removing women from the criminal law, we need to rescind the approval given by the DHSC for the provision of telemedicine pills-by-post, we need to see a return to the prior law which mandated an in-person medical consultation before the abortion pills are prescribed. There is no doubt that this group of investigations and prosecutions would not have happened had there first been an in-person consultation.

Flawed pills by post policy

In the interview with Dr Lord, when noting his claim of the current 50-60 active criminal investigations compared with pretty well zero before 2018, he tells the File on 4 team: “this is a national scandal, which I think we will look back on in years to come and question how on earth could this have been allowed to happen.” He thrashes around for some rationale, suggesting that increasing awareness of pills-by-post has caused the police to become more suspicious of women, and this is made worse when NHS medics make the ‘mistake’ of reporting suspected cases to the police.

Frankly, whilst I share Lord’s concern for those women who have suffered unnecessary or unfounded investigations, I think he is now desperately clutching at straws, using these rare heartbreaking cases to further his scandalous campaign to decriminalise abortion. The problem that needs to be addressed is the flawed pills-by-post telemedicine process and the removal of in-person medical consultations; that is how this ‘national scandal’ has been allowed to happen – all on his watch.