THE HIGH Court in London has ruled that women in England, Wales and Scotland must continue to travel to abortion clinics to take the second course of tablets to induce their medical abortions.
The pro-abortion British Pregnancy Advisory Service had asked the court to approve the move to make it easier for women to complete a pregnancy termination at home. They said women should be allowed to take the second course – which is followed by an abortion within four to six hours – at home, rather than risk a miscarriage on their way home.
Under the UK’s abortion law, introduced in 1967 and updated in 1990, women must take both courses under medical supervision in a clinic, though, in practice, women leave immediately after they have taken the second course, which is up to 48 hours after they have taken the first.
Seventy thousand abortions took place at nine weeks gestation in England and Wales in 2009 using the tablets, according to the latest figures. This figure accounts for half of all early abortions in England, Scotland and Wales. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland.
Chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service Ann Furedi said the charity would continue to press for a change in the law, saying that medical treatments had moved on since the 1967 legislation.
“It cannot be morally right to compel a woman to physically take tablets in a clinic and to subject her to the anxiety that symptoms will start on the journey back when her doctor knows it is safe and indeed preferable for her to take these at home,” she said.
The High Court acknowledged that secretary of state Andrew Lansley does have power to designate a home as a proper place for taking the tablets, but said the legislation has not been amended to allow that.
Meanwhile, the Abortion Support Network, a London-based organisation that helps Irish women to pay for abortions, has said it will go broke unless it get donations urgently because of increasing demand for its services.
“Barely six weeks into 2011, the Abortion Support Network has already heard from more than 20 women in desperate need of assistance, including a 15-year-old girl; a 20-week pregnant 16-year-old; and a 19-year-old rape victim,” said Mara Clarke, director of the support network.
“We have had a high number of extremely expensive cases, a combination of very young women with limited resources and women later in pregnancy. These women come to us with heartbreaking stories of the obstacles they have faced in both preventing an unplanned pregnancy and then obtaining an abortion,” she said.
One woman faced extra costs associated with a later termination because she missed her original appointment on account of the winter snows, while a mother with four children and a part-time job could only raise £800 of the £1,400 cost of an abortion.
A single mother of a young child, recently out of a rehabilitation facility, was also part-funded by the organisation, said Ms Clarke, along with a single woman “who wanted [to keep] her baby until she lost her job”.
