Wales set to allow abortion pills to be taken at home

MORE women could soon be given the option to end their pregnancies at home by taking the abortion pill.

The Welsh Government looks set to follow Scotland in changing its laws to allow those up to nine weeks pregnant to have an unsupervised medical abortion.

It has led to similar calls from campaigners in England, who argue that travelling to and from clinics adds to women’s stress at a difficult time.

But others say that women should never be left alone to carry out the procedure, which often leads to emotional and physiological strain.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which has called for the home abortion pill’s introduction since 2004, welcomed the ‘brillaint news’. Women can currently only have medical terminations, in which women take two tablets – mifepristone and misprostol – up to 48 hours apart to end the pregnancy, in a clinic and only after two doctors have given consent. Once legislation changes, women will no longer need an additional appointment to take misprostol.

Yesterday Welsh Health Secretary Vaughan Gething said: ‘I have instructed officials to start work immediately on how we can amend the legal framework to allow for the treatment of the termination of pregnancy to be carried out at home,’ he told Assembly Members.

The Department of Health and Social Care said it would ‘continue to monitor the evidence surrounding home-use’.