New late abortion guidance tells health staff to avoid reporting women to police

MEDICS have been told not to report women to the police for late abortions in Royal College guidance.

Leaders are calling for an end to “deeply traumatised” women being prosecuted after an abortion following a recent rise in police investigations.

In the first official guidance of its kind, the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians (RCOG) has said healthcare workers must justify disclosing patient data or “face potential fitness to practice proceedings”. NHS staff can breach patient confidentiality rules to pass information to the police about possible crimes but only if it is in the public interest. However, the RCOG said this was never the case regarding women who have abortions and need safeguarding. It said it was concerned about an increase in investigations into abortions and pregnancy loss, and the effect on “especially vulnerable” patients. The number of suspected illegal abortions registered by police forces in England and Wales was 29 in 2022, up from 16 in 2018. In 2023, six women were prosecuted in England on suspicion of breaking abortion law, the RCOG says, compared with just three in the previous 20 years.

Abortions must be performed by a registered medical practitioner within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy under current laws. It is illegal to otherwise deliberately end a pregnancy under laws dating from the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, with a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Dr Jonathan Lord, the RCOG’S medical director, told the BBC: “A law that was originally designed to protect a woman is now being used against her.

“We have witnessed life-changing harm to women and their wider families as a direct result of NHS staff reporting women suspected of crimes, and we just don’t think that would happen in other areas of healthcare.”

Carla Foster was jailed for procuring her own abortion in 2020, while Bethany Cox was cleared of the same charge earlier this month. The RCOG said it would support an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to protect women from prosecution.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service warned of the consequences of a culture of increased reporting.

A spokesman said: “The question must be asked – who benefits from subjecting women to lengthy and traumatic police investigations and threat of prosecution and prison time? Not police, not taxpayers, not politicians, and certainly not our women.”

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: “These exceptionally rare cases are complex and traumatic.