BBC Radio 4's Law in Action will be broadcast on Friday 15 October, 2004 at 1600 GMT. Abortion law is under close scrutiny, after it was revealed that an NHS-funded charity is helping women to get illegal late abortions abroad.
Women who have an elective legal abortion do not experience depression or long term psychological distress afterward, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, Maryland (Contraception 2008;78:436-50, (doi:10:1016/j.contraception.2008.07.005). They reviewed the best 21 studies published in the past 20 years, involving thousands of women.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service says the lack of abortion services for women who are 20-24 weeks pregnant is a scandal. The charity is the UK's largest abortion provider, and carries out 80% of terminations after 20 weeks.
A UK charity has insisted it is not breaking the law by referring women abroad for late abortions. The Sunday Telegraph has reported that the British Pregnancy Advisory Service helps set up hundreds of late abortions without medical justification. BPAS says not referring patients abroad would be "morally reprehensible".
A judge is to be asked to institute criminal proceedings against the Spanish clinic which was exposed as carrying out illegal late abortions on hundreds of British babies. A denuncias - the Spanish term for an accusation of criminal activity - will this week be laid against the Ginemedex clinic in Barcelona, citing the extensive video and audio evidence collected by this newspaper, proving that it is flouting abortion laws. The judge will decide whether to order a full police investigation into the scandal, which was uncovered when staff at the clinic agreed to carry out an abortion on an undercover reporter who was 26 weeks, or almost six months, pregnant, even though both she and the baby were healthy.
A leading British provider of abortions did not break the law when it told women who wanted late terminations about a clinic in Spain that would perform them, a report by Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer for England, concluded last week. Professor Donaldson investigated the charity the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) after a newspaper reported that it was illegally referring women to Spain for abortions after 24 weeks’ gestation, the limit in Britain for abortions for "social" reasons. Professor Donaldson has decided that BPAS did not break the law by telling women about the Spanish clinic. But he criticised it for giving out the clinic’s telephone number too readily and for not giving appropriate advice to women seeking a late abortion.
Anti-abortion campaigners have won a High Court challenge to clarify government guidelines on abortion in Northern Ireland. The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (Spuc) claimed guidance to health professionals was misleading and legally inaccurate. The High Court ruled the Department of Health's guidelines be withdrawn. The court found the guidelines failed to deal properly with counselling and conscientious objection. The judge, Lord Justice Girvan, stopped short of quashing the document issued by the Department of Health in March. Spuc was seeking a declaration that the decision to publish the advice to health professionals was unlawful.
The abortion rate has dropped for the second year running in England and Wales, statistics show. But experts said it was still too early to say whether there was a downward trend. The total number of abortions was 189,100 in 2009 - a rate of 17.5 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, according to the Department of Health figures. This compares to 18.2 in 2008 and comes after a general upward trend for the past 40 years which peaked in 2007. The abortion rate in Scotland also fell last year to 12.4 per 1,000.
A new law that legalises abortion on demand in Spain for the first time and came into force on July 5 could be suspended and delayed for months or years as opposition groups demand a judicial review. Two appeals have been lodged with the Spanish Constitutional Court, which has the power to abolish laws it finds unconstitutional. The appeals are from the conservative Popular Party—the strongest group in opposition—and the regional government of Navarre. The court has agreed to review the law and has set a two week deadline for the government, the congress, and the senate to register their opposition to the review. The Popular Party has asked for the law to be suspended as a precautionary measure until the court delivers its judgment. If the request is granted the law could be delayed for months or years, even if the judicial institution decides that the law is constitutional.
A decision last week by Germany’s Federal Supreme Court to acquit a gynaecologist of illegal abortion after he chose to carry out genetic diagnosis on several human embryos and discarded those with genetic defects has stirred a debate about the possible need for a new law tightening the rules on preimplantation genetic diagnosis. The landmark ruling said that embryos created from in vitro fertilisation (IVF) can be screened for genetic defects before being implanted in the womb. The 47 year old doctor, who was not identified, brought the case to court himself in 2006 to clarify the legal situation. He had already been acquitted in May 2009 by a regional court in Berlin, but the prosecutor had appealed the decision.
Abortion on demand for some women will be legal for the first time in Spain from next July. The controversial law that allows women to have an abortion without restrictions during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy was approved in the Senate last Wednesday by a majority of six votes. Representatives of the Spanish Socialist Party and feminist groups welcomed the law, which was promoted by the socialist government. They described it as a "historic step" in the fight for women’s rights. Spain’s president, José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, said that from now on "it won’t be possible to send women to prison for interrupting their pregnancy." He added that the previous law had been an advance at the time but that "lately it has caused some problems."
The Queensland state government is under pressure to reform “archaic” laws criminalising abortion after a young couple were acquitted on charges related to a medical abortion. In the Cairns District Court in north Queensland on 14 October a jury took less than an hour to find Tegan Leach, 20, and Sergei Brennan, 22, not guilty of charges that could have resulted in a jail sentence. Ms Leach was charged under section 225 of the Queensland Criminal Code of 1899, which applies to a woman who uses force, any “noxious” thing, or any other means to procure an abortion. Mr Brennan was charged under section 226 of the code with unlawfully supplying the means to procure an abortion. It was alleged that he had arranged for a relative in the Ukraine to post him tablets of mifepristone (also called RU486) and misoprostol, which had been used to bring about an early abortion in the couple’s home in December 2008.
Women in the Irish Republic will have to be given the means to access legal abortions there if their lives are at risk, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in a landmark judgment. The ruling, by the grand chamber of the Strasbourg court, can not be appealed and will require Ireland to legislate or otherwise set up a framework to decide whether there is a “real and substantial risk” to a woman’s life if she goes ahead with her pregnancy. The court held that the human rights of a woman with a rare cancer were violated when she was obliged to travel to the United Kingdom for an abortion and awarded her €15 000 (£12 700; $19 800) in compensation.
The Monday Interview: A growing number of medical professionals are supporting the idea of assisted dying. Dr Ann McPherson – who herself has only months to live – tells Jeremy Laurance why
The United Kingdom’s largest independent abortion provider is mounting a High Court challenge to make it possible for women to complete early stage abortions at home. BPAS, formerly known as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, is asking the court to rule that the 1967 Abortion Act allows women to take the second dose of tablets for an early medical abortion at home. The act says that any treatment for the termination of pregnancy has to be carried out at a hospital or clinic. Early medical abortion, available in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, requires women to take two sets of treatment, mifepristone and misoprostol, 24 to 48 hours apart. Currently in the UK this means two visits to a hospital or clinic.