Lord Steel welcomes ‘DIY’ home abortions approval

A CONTROVERSIAL decision to allow women in Scotland to take abortion pills at home has been welcomed by the man who pushed for the procedure to be made legal 50 years ago.

Lord Steel, the architect of the 1967 Abortion Act, said he ‘very much’ welcomed the move. Pro-life campaigners said it marks a ‘return to the days of back-street abortions’.

It came after Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Catherine Calderwood, approved the use of Misoprostol outside hospitals or clinics.

John Deighan, chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in Scotland, said: ‘This will have many vulnerable women who may be desperate, pushed towards what is seen as the easy option of being handed some drugs and sent home to stop being a problem for society.’

But on BBC Radio Scotland Lord Steel said: ‘It will still be in the care of the medical profession, just like any other medical procedure is. It is not proposed that it be unregulated.’

He said when the Abortion Act was passed surgery was the only method for terminating a pregnancy, but the situation had now ‘changed and therefore the law is out of date’.

Also on BBC Radio Scotland Dr Calderwood said: ‘We’re the first country in the UK who are going to have women have the choice to take the second tablet for an abortion at home.

‘This is safe, it offers women more choice and we know that this is what people want.

‘We’re not changing any of the process around abortion. Women come forward, we have doctors to speak to them, there are consent forms to sign and everything is done exactly as previously in the law.

‘The only difference here is the second tablet, which has until now been given in a hospital setting, can be offered to women if it is clinically safe for them to take home.’

‘This is what people want’