Latest news with #BPAS
Sky News
09-07-2025
- Health
- Sky News
Abortion rate hits record high, figures show
A record high of almost three in 10 conceptions in England and Wales ended in a legal abortion in 2022, official figures show. The percentage was 29.7% - up from 26.5% a year earlier and 20.8% in 2012, according to the Office For National Statistics (ONS). The figure has generally been increasing for all age groups since 2015, the ONS added. Lengthy waiting times for some forms of contraception and financial struggles could explain the rise, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) said. The figures were described as "heartbreaking" by the Christian Action Research And Education charity, which added that it was "especially painful" if poverty was a driving factor. There were 247,703 conceptions leading to a legal abortion in 2022, a 13.1% rise on the 218,923 recorded in 2021, ONS data showed. Figures published last year by the government showed the number of abortions in 2022 for women in England and Wales was at a record 251,377. The ONS said its data was based on the estimated date of conception, while government figures are based on the date of the abortion, leading to a difference in the overall numbers. Girls aged under 16 remained the age group with the highest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion, at 61%. Women aged between 30 and 34 had the lowest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion in 2022, at around a fifth, or 20.5%. The age group with the highest number of conceptions was women in their early 30s, at 249,991. Women aged over 40 had a conception rate of 17.2 per 1,000 women in 2022, slightly below the record high of 17.3 per 1,000 women in 2021, the ONS said. Katherine O'Brien, from BPAS, said emergency contraception "remains an underutilised resource". "The government has committed to improving access via pharmacies, but we need to see this medication reclassified so that it can be sold in a wider range of outlets, including supermarkets, so that women can access it as swiftly as possible when needed," she said.
The Herald Scotland
29-06-2025
- Health
- The Herald Scotland
Why Scotland must press on with abortion law reform
Yet that risk had existed for more than 160 years. Underpinned by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 – a law passed by an all-male parliament before women had the right to vote – having an 'illegal' abortion outside of tightly controlled circumstances was a crime that carried with it a maximum life sentence. Despite decades of progress in both abortion provision and public opinion, the threat of prosecution remained. Last week's vote in Westminster is welcome progress, but as abortion law is devolved in Scotland, the change will only apply to women in England and Wales. This means that Scotland now stands as the only nation in the UK that has not moved to remove abortion from the criminal law. That must change. Read more: No qualified surgeons on panel to advise Scottish Government Minister criticised for backtracking on abortion care comments 'Only one Scottish doctor is trained in surgical care to legal limit' When I co-founded Back Off Scotland in 2020 to end protests outside abortion facilities, I was struck to learn how out-of-step our laws were with how abortion care is actually provided. Despite important innovations in abortion provision – such as the introduction of telemedical abortion – Scotland's legal framework remains stuck in the 20th Century. Our abortion law – the Abortion Act 1967 – is now almost 60 years old. Whilst this was revolutionary piece of legislation in the sixties, it is now no longer fit for purpose. Under this law, all abortions still require two doctors' signatures, and women must meet specific legal criteria to qualify for an abortion. In practice, this means that simply not wanting to be pregnant is not a valid reason to have an abortion. Despite this, Scotland has taken bold steps to improve abortion access in the past: for example, through the introduction of telemedicine during the pandemic. Introduced at pace by the Scottish Government to reduce the spread of the Coronavirus and ensure that those who needed an abortion were still able to access one during the pandemic, the temporary introduction of Early Medical Abortion at Home (EMAH) in March 2020 meant that women under 12 weeks' gestation were able to take both abortion medications – mifepristone and misoprostol – at home if strict criteria were met following a remote teleconsultation. Off the back of calls from various medical bodies and women's rights groups, as well as evidence from the largest study on telemedical abortion in the world which found this method of care to be 'safe, effective, and improves care', provisions were made permanent in Scotland in 2022. Whilst Scotland led the way in some areas, in others we've fallen far behind. Perhaps most notably in sending women to England for abortion beyond 20 weeks' gestation. One woman every four days has to travel from Scotland to a BPAS clinic in England to access abortion care because no health board provides care up to the legal limit of 24 weeks' gestation – a shameful stain on our pro-choice country. The reasons that women seek abortion after 20 weeks are complex and varied, but often involve devastating life changes, medical diagnoses, and delayed recognition of pregnancy. Yet the NHS in Scotland abandons these women, and over the years, thousands have had to make this journey despite being legally entitled to receive this care in Scotland. In 2014, government-commissioned research into Scottish womens' experiences of travelling to England for care was published. The findings were bleak and improving solutions to access these abortions were described by researchers as a 'necessity'. Despite warm words and countless commitments from the Scottish Government, this status-quo has gone unchanged for decades and caused untold levels of harm to the women who have had to make this journey. In 2023 when Humza Yousaf was standing to become leader of the SNP, Back Off Scotland wrote to him asking him to make three key pledges: to implement buffer zones, to stop the practice of sending women to England for abortion care by ensuring services can be accessed within Scotland, and to decriminalise abortion. He pledged to deliver all three, but only the first has been achieved. When Humza committed to decriminalising abortion, we seized the moment. Together with 18 pro-choice partners, such as Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, Engender, and the Humanist Society Scotland, we wrote to him calling for a full review of abortion law in Scotland, with a view to modernising it in the coming years. The government responded, and established an Expert Group in 2024. That group is now at work and is expected to deliver its findings and recommendations in the coming months. This review will bring much needed clarity to the status of abortion law in Scotland. As abortion in Scotland is governed by common law, there is widespread confusion and uncertainty over whether a woman could be prosecuted as they have been in England. This uncertainty was further exacerbated following the recent publication of guidance from the UK National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), which suggested that women experiencing pregnancy loss should have their homes and digital devices checked, as well as their medical records and reproductive tracking devices investigated to see if any laws had been broken. Whilst there was rightly national outcry about this, it remains unclear whether the guidance applies to Scotland and whether Police Scotland would be prepared to use similar tactics to those used by English police forces who have criminalised women under abortion offences. A review into abortion law has never been more pressing or urgent. With public backing, political will, and expert consensus behind abortion law reform, the momentum is undeniable. After last week's historic vote in Westminster, the time for Scotland to reform our outdated abortion law is now. Lucy Grieve is Co-Founder of Back Off Scotland, and Policy and Engagement Manager at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
The National
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The National
Westminster is set to decriminalise abortion - what about Scotland?
Abortion is still a crime in Scotland, England and Wales, under legislation which was passed in 1967. But in the Commons this week, an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill will remove the threat of 'investigation, arrest, prosecution or imprisonment' of any woman who acts in relation to her own pregnancy. It comes after several high-profile cases where women have been arrested for illegal abortion offences. In Scotland, while the same 1960s legislation applies, and sets a number of limitations on the circumstances that allow an abortion can be granted, campaigners have said there is less 'urgency' for decriminalisation to be brought in north of the border. READ MORE: Holyrood governing body defends 'unfair' trans toilet ban Rachel Clarke, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), explained: 'In England and Wales we've got underlying statute dating to the 1800s which is being used against women on a sort of semi-regular basis. 'More than 100 women have been investigated in recent years, six have ended up in court. There are also quite a few of those women who are still in the system awaiting a decision from prosecutors on whether their case is going to be taken to court. 'So for us, that change is very urgent and essential.' In one instance, Nicola Packer was taken to a police cell from hospital after delivering a still born baby at home. She had taken prescribed abortion medication at around 26 weeks pregnant, later telling jurors that she did not realise she had been pregnant for more than 10 weeks. The Westminster legislation, while decriminalising women, does not change the law relating to the provision of abortion services - such as the requirement to be approved by two doctors. Clarke explained that there hadn't been the same levels of criminalisation in Scotland, mostly due to the existence of common law that isn't 'used against women in the same way' as the Westminster statute. 'Because Scotland doesn't have that urgent problem, the work that we've been doing up there and that Back Off Scotland has been doing up there, has been about trying to do wholesale reform of the law as the first thing,' Clarke explained. 'To deal with the issues that we've got, but also to support some of the work that's going on around improved access, particularly at later gestations.' 'The most urgent thing in Scotland at the moment is the lack of services post 20 weeks.' READ MORE: Israel accused of 'hypocrisy' after calling hospital strike 'war crime' Abortions are permitted until 24 weeks under the current law, but if a woman in Scotland requires one after 20 weeks, they have to travel to England for specialist care. The Scottish Greens have recently called for abortion to be decriminalised in Scotland, but with the clock counting down to the Holyrood elections in 2026, there is little time on the parliamentary agenda to get legislation scrutinised and passed. The power to update the law on abortion was devolved to the Scottish Parliament in 2016. There has been ample time to tackle the issue. In January, Scottish Labour MSP Carol Mochan asked the Scottish Government when it plans to review the current legal framework on abortion. Women's health minister Jenni Minto pointed to a commitment made by Scottish Government ministers in the 2023 programme for government to review the law. An expert group is due to send a report to ministers in the summer, but she notes that 'proposals for changes to abortion law would be subject to a public consultation'. With the topic of abortion likely to spark a heated debate, it will undoubtedly be a lengthy, contentious process, whatever the expert group suggests. It is clear that the current law is outdated and crying out for reform - but with the aforementioned tight deadline for Holyrood legislation, it could be a long time until Scotland modernises the law on abortion.
Metro
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Metro
MPs decriminalised abortion — but your rights are still under threat
Women who've had late-term miscarriages are seeing police officers, not counsellors, by their hospital beds. At the same time, the leader of the fastest growing political party has called the 24-week abortion limit 'ludicrous'. This is the UK in 2025, because as Labour MP Stella Creasy recently put it: 'The Trump playbook is already here in our politics.' But tonight, MPs made a historic move, voting to finally decriminalise abortion in England and Wales after 60 long years. It represents a 'monumental change to our abortion law', says Katherine O'Brien, from the leading abortion provider BPAS. But let's not forget why it was needed; women's reproductive rights are under threat. 'Increasingly, women are being investigated by police under suspicion of illegally ending their own pregnancy, and this includes women who've experienced miscarriages, stillbirth and access to legal care, and the impact that can have on their lives, their family, is unimaginable,' O'Brien tells Metro. 'This vote will mean that will come to an end, and that is a huge, huge achievement.' Abortion is technically illegal in England and Wales under a piece of Victorian legislation, though in practice, termination is allowed up to 24 weeks (and in a few other circumstances) provided two doctors have signed it off, meeting the criteria of the 1967 Abortion Act. Two Labour MPs – Tonia Antoniazzi and Stella Creasy – tabled (slightly different) amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill, both of which would decriminalise abortion in law, but not alter the access framework. In Creasy's version, access to abortion would become a human right, with women who access abortion outside of the framework – and those who assist them – decriminalised. Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi's version is a little less hardline, maintaining criminalisation for doctors performing late-term or sex-selective procedures. The latter amendment was voted for by 379 MPs, with 137 voting no. In the past three years, six women have appeared in court in England charged with ending or attempting to end their own pregnancy outside abortion law. Abortion provider MSI Choices is aware of 60 criminal inquiries in England and Wales since 2018, compared to almost zero before. It's often the most vulnerable women who are affected. 'Women who have been investigated by the police include domestic abuse survivors, potential trafficking survivors, and women who have experienced miscarriages and stillbirths,' Louise McCudden from MSI Reproductive Choices UK tells Metro. 'At a time when they need compassion the most, they have been stigmatised and treated like criminals.' O'Brien has heard of harrowing tales through her work, including one recently of a woman who accessed abortion pills through a legal provider, believing she was earlier in her pregnancy than she was. 'She then went on to have a baby, who she now cares for, but is still being investigated by the police under suspicion that she illegally tried to end her pregnancy,' she says. She's spoken with another woman, Sammy, who considered termination, but decided to continue with that pregnancy. 'When she went into premature labour at home, she called the emergency services thinking that an ambulance would arrive, but actually it was the police that arrived first to search for evidence of abortion pills.' In January, the National Police Chiefs' Council quietly published new guidance on investigating women who experience sudden unexpected pregnancy loss. The guidance details how women can have their devices seized to search history – plus period tracking apps – to determine whether they knew they were pregnant and how far along. 'This is what's going on in our country right now,' O'Brien says. 'These are stories that you would expect to hear from Texas or Poland, not England in 2025, and while the numbers are small, they are growing.' Though abortion providers and pro-choice campaigners have almost unanimously backed the amendment, its need is a reflection of dark times. 'We're certainly seeing a rise in anti-choice activity around the world. It's being driven largely by the US,' McCudden says. 'We saw the reversal of Roe v Wade. We saw the re-election of Donald Trump in the White House, and before safe access zones were introduced, we saw a rise in hostile activity on the doorsteps of our clinics.' She believes anti-abortion groups in the UK have been 'emboldened' by the rollback of rights in the US – a sentiment echoed by Stella Creasy, who said she tabled her bill as a pre-emptive strike against a hypothetical Reform government. Last year, Nigel Farage called the UK's current 24-week abortion limit 'ludicrous'. 'I listen to my colleagues in America. I listen to their warnings,' Creasy told The News Agents podcast. 'What they say is, we really regret having not acted when we had the chance to protect abortion rights under Obama, because we knew if Trump got into power, even though he was saying that he wouldn't do this and it wasn't his agenda, he would.' Nobody can 'bind a future government', Creasy added, but decriminalisation sets an important precedent. As well as voting on decriminalisation, MPs also voted on whether to scrap telemedicine (pills by post) – a system that allows women to take abortion pills at home. The amendment, which didn't pass, was supported by a group of cross-party MPs, including Reform's Richard Tice. 'Even though decriminalisation is a huge step forward, what we have seen in parliament this evening is a concerted attack,' O'Brien says of the telemedicine amendment. She adds that tonight's change is 'a really important step', but 'this isn't the end.' More Trending 'There is still so much more to do to our abortion law into the 21st Century. It's still the case that two doctors need to sign off a woman's abortion – there's no other comparable procedure where two doctors need to approve your decision. Is that the framework that we believe suits women in 2025? Like Creasy, she also has concerns about what the rise of Reform might mean. 'This isn't a party line issue, but we are aware that Nigel Farage himself is anti-abortion and would like to reduce the limit. That is a concern, but that's why we have to remain vigilant, and that's why we have to make the progress that we can now, and absolutely it can't wait, because if we wait, we risk another government coming in that won't allow us to make the changes that we need to see.' 'We absolutely need to remain vigilant, because anti-abortion groups are well-funded, well-organised, and often they shout the loudest.' 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Cosmopolitan
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Cosmopolitan
Women are *finally* no longer at risk of being prosecuted when it comes to abortion
Tonight (17 June 2025), MPs voted in favour of removing women from criminal law in relation to procuring an abortion in England and Wales, via an amendment to the Crime and Policing bill tabled by Labour MP, Tonia Antoniazzi. Once passed, this will finally put a stop to the criminalisation of people who have abortions and do away with an archaic law – the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act – which was created before women even had the right to vote. This change follows a long-running campaign by the country's leading abortion providers, BPAS and MSI, and more than thirty other organisations such as the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and us here at Cosmopolitan UK. In the end, 379 MPs voted in favour of passing the amendment and 137 voted against it, giving a majority of 242. The change does not come into effect immediately but ought to do so after the bill becomes a law and has received royal assent, something expected to happen given Labour's majority. Ahead of the amendment passing, England and Wales had the world's most severe penalty for women found guilty of having an illegal abortion, carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison. Once the changes set out in the bill come into play formally, England and Wales' abortion law will be in line with that of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Northern Ireland and Ireland. The framework through which abortion is accessed – including the 24-week time limit, the option to have a pills-by-post termination, and the requirement for two doctors to sign off on the procedure – all remain firmly in place. Sadly, this has not stopped anti-abortion groups from falsely labelling this law reform as 'advocating for abortion up until birth'. Speaking about why the issue was important to her ahead of the vote, Antoniazzi said, "The reality is that no woman wakes up 24 weeks pregnant or more and suddenly decides to end their own pregnancy outside a hospital or clinic. "But some women, in desperate circumstances, make choices that many of us would struggle to understand. What they need is compassion and care, not the threat of criminal prosecution." Now, women who've experienced a late-stage miscarriage will no longer at risk of a police investigation if medical staff report them as suspicious. Nor is a woman at risk of a criminal trial, as seen in the recent Nicola Packer case, if she mistakenly calculates how far into a pregnancy she is when opting for a pills-by-post termination. Instead, she will be met with compassion rather than a years-long police investigation that upends her world and could result in a sentence of life imprisonment. Women in vulnerable situations no longer need to fear seeking help from medics if they need it, out of fear that they could be unfairly investigated. Louise McCudden, UK head of external affairs at MSI, said the successfully tabled amendment was 'designed to fix a very specific, urgent problem that we're seeing at the moment, which is women facing criminal investigation and prison for ending their own pregnancies'. It also, she added, sends a positive signal to anti-abortion groups in the UK which have become louder and better-funded in recent years, and coincides with abortion providers receiving multiple requests for women's medical information from police in recent years. 'Once this reform is signed into law, no one will face invasive criminal investigations into their medical history and personal life following an unexplained pregnancy loss,' McCudden added. 'No one will face prison for ending their own pregnancy. Abortion care will continue to be provided in the same way as before. The only difference is that nobody will face criminal prosecution for ending their own pregnancy.' Dr Charlotte Proudman, a leading barrister, women's rights advocate, and director of Right to Equality, said, 'This is a watershed moment in the legal recognition of reproductive rights in England and Wales. For the first time, Parliament has taken concrete steps to remove women and pregnant people from the scope of criminal law in relation to abortion. 'This is a fundamental shift in how the law conceptualises bodily autonomy, moving away from a punitive framework rooted in the 19th century towards a healthcare-based model. The next step must be full legal reform to ensure equitable, nationwide access to abortion care. Decriminalisation alone does not guarantee availability.' The law will not come into effect until the Crime and Policing bill has fully made its way through Parliament and is given royal assent. There is no clear date on when this might happen at this stage. Working across this campaign has shown us here at Cosmopolitan UK how many of you are passionate about the right to access. While this victory is huge for women's rights, there is still work to be done. There is still a stigma surrounding abortion that impacts our relationship with it and we know that there are access issues, especially in rural areas. We will keep reporting on this topic and fighting for change, as we have done since our inception over 50 years ago. Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC's Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women's Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
