A MUM who had her house searched by police while giving her premature baby mouth-to-mouth was one of 100 women probed over ‘illegal abortions.”
Home abortions were approved at the end of March 2020 by then Health Secretary Matt Hancock when Covid lockdown restricted access to medical services.
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The new rules allow a woman to take the first pill at home within the first ten weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion is still a criminal offence in England and Wales under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, unless it meets strict criteria.
Any woman who undergoes an abortion without the permission of two doctors can be prosecuted and receive a life sentence.
Experts have now claimed there is now increases suspicion amongst the emergency services and police, leading to raids on homes.
The case of a mother giving her premature baby mouth-to-mouth and that of a 15-year-old girl who was investigated while doing her GCSEs are just two cases which have happened since lockdown, reports The Times.
Dr Jonathan Lord, co-chairman of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers (BSACP) and a consultant gynaecologist, said he was aware of at least 100 cases of women being investigated by police since 2020 and warned that the numbers were rising.
“We are seeing women who are being entrapped and investigated following a pregnancy loss. It’s absolutely devastating,” he said.
“Anybody who loses a pregnancy has all kinds of wretched feelings. But then to have NHS staff say they suspect you of causing it, and the police called to investigate it as a crime — it is life-destroying.”
The Times has reported that Home Office figures show 30 police investigations into procuring an illegal abortion since April 2020.
Police forces only record investigations once they are formalised and there has been at least one instance of a case that resulted in prosecution not included in police data.
Lord warned that in some instances police have requested blood samples from medical staff to test for the presence of abortion drugs without the proper consent.
In June police discovered a human placenta in woodland in Southampton. BPAS was asked for the names and addresses of any woman who had enquired about an abortion and then disengaged or had been scanned over the legal limit of 24 weeks.
Describing the request as “chilling”, Clare Murphy, chief executive of BPAS, said police had “no concept of the degree to which they would be breaching women’s confidentiality”.
She added: “If you restrict and criminalise abortion, it’s not just the women seeking it who are having their health rights compromised.
“It’s all pregnant women. It’s women suffering miscarriages. It creates a huge shadow of fear both for women and the healthcare professionals trying to support them.
“You effectively throw all women who experience unexplained pregnancy loss potentially under suspicion.”