Activist academics are calling for at-home abortions to be permitted up to 12 weeks of pregnancy in England & Wales, following a study claiming that the procedure is as safe and effective as hospital care in Scotland.
Currently, in England and Wales, women can currently take both mifepristone and misoprostol pills at home up to 10 weeks, a measure temporarily introduced during the coronavirus pandemic before being made permanent. In Scotland, at-home medical abortions are allowed up to 12 weeks, while in Northern Ireland they are not permitted at any stage.
The new study, published in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, analysed abortions performed in NHS Lothian between 2020 and 2025. Of 14,458 referrals, 485 women were between 10 and 12 weeks pregnant. Researchers say that 97% of abortions were successful in both hospital and home settings. They recorded a small number of complications, including one case of haemorrhage and others involving heavy bleeding or infection.
Despite these risks, the authors concluded that medical abortions up to 12 weeks were “highly effective and safe.” They called for abortion law across the UK to be amended in line with World Health Organisation guidance, which supports at-home medical abortions up to 12 weeks.
Heidi Stewart, chief executive of the rabidly pro-abortion British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), welcomed the findings, arguing that current laws compel thousands of women each year to attend hospital unnecessarily. She said that the 1967 Abortion Act, once intended to protect women’s health, now restricts medical innovation and should be “modernised” to allow at-home abortions throughout the first trimester.
SPUC questions how a study that found women were haemorrhaging in their homes as a result of abortion medication could ever find that the pills are “highly effective and safe.” As expected, activists in medicine and NGOs are pressuring the Department of Health to further liberalise abortion, to the detriment of the health of women and the safety of the unborn child.
The Department of Health offered no comment on the BMA’s request when probed by the Guardian. If they do, we hope they offer a resounding no. Pills-by-post are dangerous enough as they are. Giving them to more women would be a catastrophe.
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