Abortion plan faces legal challenge

A legal challenge over plans to allow pregnant women to take abortion-inducing medication at home will be heard in full in May.

Pro-life group The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) (Scotland) believes the Scottish Government’s move “amounts to authorising backstreet abortions” and could have “horrific” health consequences.

It has taken its fight against the decision announced by Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer last year to Scotland’s highest civil court.

At an initial hearing in the case for judicial review at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, judge Lady Wise ordered a full hearing to take place on 14 and 15 May.

The SPUC’S QC Morag Ross told her the legal arguments hinge on the interpretation of the relevant primary legislation, the 1967 Abortion Act.

The legal move comes after Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood confirmed in October that she had written to all Scottish health boards indicating that the drug misoprostol could be taken by women outside a clinical setting, under plans using powers available within the Act.

She said it was a mark of “significant progress” that women in Scotland up to nine weeks pregnant could take the second dose of the drug at home if they wanted, saying this would allow them “more privacy, more dignity”.