Police have requested data from British abortion providers 32 times since 2020

A leading abortion services provider has received more than 30 requests to hand over women’s medical records to police over the past four years, rising to an average of one per month since October.

Rachael Clarke, chief of staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said police have also escalated demands on other charities and NHS providers of abortion services in recent years.

“BPAS is acutely aware of the importance confidentiality has to our patients and deals vigorously with all police requests we receive. Our standard approach is to seek a court order – and it should be a testament to the extent to which police go too far with their requests that we have only known of one such court order since 2020,” she said.

Before 2020, there was an “underlying threat” that women whose pregnancies ended after 24 weeks, the legal limit for abortion, could be criminalized, “but that was a remote possibility,” she said. Now there was “genuine concern” about the rising number of investigations.

MPs are expected to vote in coming weeks on an amendment that would remove the possibility of women being prosecuted for terminating a pregnancy after the legal limit of 24 weeks.

Labor MP Diana Johnson is proposing an amendment to the Offenses Against the Person Act 1861 which, if passed, will mean doctors and nurses cannot terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks except in exceptional circumstances, but abortion will be decriminalized for women who take action. to terminate their pregnancy outside that law, for example after term.

“More than 220,000 abortions take place in Britain every year, and the number of women accused of breaking the law is vanishingly small in comparison,” Clarke said. “But for those women it has a huge impact. They are being subjected, at a very difficult and vulnerable time, to police investigation, to medical tests and to the possibility of their children being taken away by social services, without any evidence that they have done anything wrong.”

One of the cases BPAS handled involved a young woman under the age of 18 who was unable to access abortion services during the lockdown. By the time she visited a clinic, she was over the legal limit. She later gave birth to a stillborn baby and was investigated by police on suspicion of abortion crimes.

Another woman was on medication and gave birth at home. She was taken to hospital by ambulance. The police suspected that she was a victim of human trafficking and exploitation. While they were investigating her for abortion crimes, she fled without further support.

Although police have launched dozens of investigations, only a handful of women have been prosecuted and one found guilty. Carla Foster saw her 28-month prison sentence halved and suspended on appeal.

Clarke said: “Since 2020 we have received 32 requests from police for women’s medical records, including five since October.” The increase coincides with a rise in abortions since 2018 and a significant jump early in the Covid pandemic.

Two cases are expected to go to trial this year. In one, a woman and her partner are accused of obtaining abortion drugs online, terminating their pregnancies after the legal limit of 24 weeks and concealing fetal remains. Otherwise, reporting restrictions apply.

If Johnson’s amendment is passed, Clarke expects the law will be changed “quite sharply”. There’s a good chance it will go away, she said. “We polled MPs, which showed there is a majority vote, more than 50% compared to around 23% who are against it.

“This amendment would not change the way abortion was provided. It would not change the criminalization of doctors if they act outside the law. It would not change the requirements for two physicians’ signatures; it would not change the requirements to meet any of a number of grounds. All those underlying abortion laws remain the same. All (the amendment) does is say that women should not be criminalized if they act contrary to that law.”