Inside social media’s illicit abortion trade – where a late termination costs £350
It’s taken less than 10 minutes to find someone willing to sell me abortion pills.
Dr Jane* tells me she is based in Dubai but assures me the medication will arrive in the UK in a matter of days. How pregnant you are doesn’t matter – she provides pills as late as eight months.
*Warning: This article contains some material readers may find disturbing*
But I am not in the late stages of pregnancy, and this is not the depths of the dark web we are messaging on,
This is Facebook and I’ve told Dr Jane I’m a journalist. I found her within minutes of searching for abortion pills on the site.
In the last two years, six women have faced trial in Britain for allegedly illegally procuring their own abortions, compared to just three convictions between 1861 and 2022.
In Britain, abortions are free on the NHS with pills used up to 10 weeks and when COVID hit, these were made available by post.
Medical (using pills) and surgical abortions can be performed up to 24 weeks. After this, abortions can only be performed in a limited number of circumstances, such as if the mother’s life is at risk.
Abortions have risen to the highest number on record in England and Wales, with 251,377 taking place in 2022. Abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices said it believes pressures due to the cost-of-living crisis combined with a lack of access to contraception through stretched NHS services are both “playing a bigger role” in this.
In 2023, Carla Foster was jailed for lying to the Pills by Post scheme and taking abortion pills at 32 weeks pregnant. She spent a month in prison before an appeal moved her sentence to a suspended one.
But despite the increased availability of pills on the NHS through such schemes, abortion medication is still being sold on social media sites to people without a prescription.
Using pills bought online to abort a pregnancy is illegal under the UK’s 1861 abortion law – half of the women who faced trial since 2022 had acquired them this way.
Found within a few clicks, the pills are sold by people claiming to be doctors, but whose credentials are almost impossible to verify.
Dr Jane’s profile picture is of a smiling woman with a stethoscope around her neck – but that image is actually taken from the website of a retina specialist in Florida.
The fake Dr Jane told me via Messenger that she is a nurse in Dubai and smuggles the pills out of the hospital where she works.
For an early-stage pregnancy, it is £150. Anything above six months costs £300.
Pills can be taken as late as eight months, she says, and sends graphic images of foetuses claiming to have helped abort them. Their tiny features are visible and veined, and they are clearly dead. But whether she did help abort them is difficult to know.
A medical expert who looked at the images for me said it is impossible to tell if they were generated by AI or at what stage the miscarriages occurred. But they said they would question the credibility of anyone who sent images like these as “proof”.
“Abortion is a woman’s right. It shouldn’t be illegal,” Dr Jane says. No woman, she claims, has ever died from pills she has sold.
Eventually, she stops answering my questions and when I go to message her a week later, her account is gone.
“Dr Jane” is not an anomaly. When her account disappears, there are still dozens of others to choose from.
Prices for a pack of pills vary from £190 to more than £300 – although one seller on Telegram says I can bulk buy 10 “abortion kits” for £575 if I am interested in selling them.
In contrast, the pills are actually “very cheap” to buy direct from the manufacturer for NHS and medical providers, one gynaecologist tells me. One costs approximately 17p per tablet and the other is £10.14 per tablet.
In one Facebook group, a woman posts about needing help. Within minutes, there are multiple comments from sellers offering advice and pills. Some sellers openly post WhatsApp numbers they use to deal directly with buyers.
After I join one of these groups, I receive a message from Layla*.
Layla’s Facebook picture comes from Pinterest. With red hair, lurid eyeshadow, and black-ringed lips, it gives her account a dark feel.
I ask what she would do for someone who was over the UK’s legal limit.
Layla tells me she has done this before, that aborting after 24 weeks is going to be “painful”.
“You are going to push a baby out,” she says.
She claims to have helped one woman (not in the UK) who was 29 weeks pregnant.
Buying abortion pills from her would cost £358 as, like with Dr Jane, the price rises the later a woman is in her pregnancy. The money is paid via GCash, a Filipino payment service, which suggests that is where she is based but she claims to ship pills all around the world.
“I have a lot of clients who went through the process and they all come out successful and free,” Layla says. “No one has ever died. No one was brought to the hospital.”
But while Layla tries to paint it as low-risk, multiple qualified doctors told me that late, at-home abortions can be deeply traumatic and high risk.
“Dr Jane” also includes a package of injections in her “abortion kit” – these are sometimes used to prevent bleeding, but this form of medication can be dangerous for home use, particularly for women with high blood pressure.
A leading gynaecologist campaigning to change the abortion law, Dr Jonathan Lord, says the trauma goes beyond just the physical process, “which obviously is very traumatic”.
“The trauma is why are they doing this in the first place? To be in a situation where they’re trying get pills illegally at six months pregnant, something calamitous must have happened to their life.”
Layla is vocal when she tells me her reasons for selling the pills.
“The world needs to know that a woman’s body belongs to her and not the government,” she says.
When I tell her about the rising number of women facing trial in the UK as a result of procuring abortion pills (both from the NHS and online), she tells me she knows what she does is illegal: “But that’s not the whole story.”
Abortion at any stage is illegal in the Philippines – anyone who performs one faces six years in prison under the country’s penal code, while women who undergo the procedure face between two and six years in jail.
She started selling pills after using them herself. She already had children and was struggling financially telling me: “Our life is hard”.
Layla was 18 weeks pregnant when she finally bought her own abortion pills, because she needed time to save the money.
The woman she bought them from then offered her the chance to resell them. She now gets paid $30 (£24) for every woman she “assists”. In the last two weeks, she says she has sold pills to 14 people around the world – although none in the UK.
Layla never handles the pills herself. “There’s my… you could call her my boss. I send orders to her, and she sends those orders to the shipper.”
She says she is one of seven women working under her “boss”.
Adverts for abortion pills can be found on social media platforms including Facebook, TikTok and Telegram, but they are particularly easy to locate on the Meta platforms. It takes just a few keywords to throw up several groups and posts from sellers.
On Instagram, sellers post infographics about abortion and encourage people to private message them, or link to Telegram chats posting pictures and prices of pills. One post details how to avoid detection, with advice including making a new email address to order pills and turning off location tracking.
These sellers are “unscrupulous opportunists”, says Louise McCudden, a spokesperson for charity MSI.
McCudden believes companies, like Meta, should take responsibility for allowing the trade to continue on their platforms.
“When global social media companies refuse to properly regulate their billion-dollar platforms, it leaves vulnerable women at the mercy of scammers, crooks, and frauds,” she adds.
“Ironically, it is often fear of prosecution which causes women in vulnerable circumstances to feel they must rely on unregulated suppliers rather than accessing care within the NHS.”
Read more: What are the UK’s abortion laws and punishments for breaking them?
Venny Ala-Siurua is the executive director of Women on Web (WoW) – a non-profit online abortion service that sends abortion medication worldwide, legally providing pills to women up to 12 weeks.
WoW said it used to receive five requests every day from women in the UK, but this rapidly dropped to almost zero when the NHS introduced Pills by Post.
But Venny says “these [illegal] sellers operate very openly”.
WoW experiences a different problem and struggles with the Facebook algorithm not being able to distinguish between their content and that of these illegal sellers.
Venny herself has been permanently banned from Facebook and the site often takes down WoW’s own abortion-focused content for violating the company’s “community rules”.
“We have a team almost full-time trying to negotiate with Meta to get our content back up,” she says.
When asked about this, and Sky News’s findings, Meta says: “We want our platforms to be a place where people can access reliable information about health services such as abortion, advertisers can promote health services, and everyone can discuss and debate public policies in this space.
“Content about reproductive health must follow our rules, including those on pharmaceutical drugs and misinformation.”
Meta said it had removed violating content brought to its attention.
Telegram and TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
An amendment by Labour MP Diana Johnson to the Criminal Justice Bill would have stopped anyone facing prosecution for ending their own pregnancy in England and Wales.
However, in the wake of the general election announcement, discussions on the bill have been shelved following an early dissolution of Parliament.
Catherine Robinson, from Right to Life UK, said Sky News’s findings of the availability of abortion pills on social media were “extremely disturbing”.
And there is little to stop these online sellers, who paint their dangerous trade as almost heroic.
In reality, it is their failure to acknowledge the hazards of facilitating late-term abortions that is putting the lives of the very women they claim to help at risk.
*Names have been changed.
UK
Girl, 12, who died after being found unresponsive at psychiatric unit failed on multiple levels, inquest finds
A 12-year-old girl who died after an incident of self-harm was failed on multiple levels, an inquest jury has found.
Warning: This story contains references to self-harm and suicide
Mia Lucas, who died in January 2024, was found unresponsive at an NHS children’s psychiatric unit after developing a rare neurological disorder that had been left undiagnosed.
The jury at Sheffield Coroner’s Court heard the girl was found at the Becton Centre, part of Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.
She had been placed there after being sectioned while suffering an “acute psychotic episode” during an assessment at the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham.
On Thursday, the jury found that the failure to undertake a lumbar puncture at QMC before her transfer to the Becton Centre “possibly contributed to Mia’s death”.
A lumbar puncture involves a needle being inserted into your lower back to find out if symptoms are caused by a brain or spine condition.
Mia Lucas.
Pic: Family handout/PA
The jury also said there was a failure at the Becton Centre to respond adequately to Mia’s risk of self-harm.
Professor Marta Cohen told the jury Mia’s cause of death was “compression of the neck” but she had now added that this was caused by “acute psychosis”, which was caused by “autoimmune encephalitis”, an inflammation of the brain that can cause extreme psychiatric symptoms and is treatable.
The autoimmune encephalitis diagnosis emerged during the nine-day inquest after a pathologist revealed she had received new post-mortem results.
The revelation prompted shock in the courtroom and tears from Mia’s family members in the public gallery.
The condition was described as “complex and rare”, according to consultant paediatric neurologist Mike Taylor.
He added that there was a low level of suspicion Mia had it, while being assessed at QMC, and told the court that experts had to consider the very severe treatment side effects, which included death.
Mia’s mother, Chloe Hayes, told Sky News she was unhappy at how the Becton Centre had supervised her daughter.
Mia Lucas (right), with her mother Chloe. Pic: Family handout/PA
“All they had to do was watch her. I actually never got told the truth about the attempts that Mia made [to self-harm] until after she died,” she said.
“If I’d have known the truth I wouldn’t have left Mia there. And I think she had so much to live for. I don’t think she knew what she was doing.”
In a statement, Mrs Hayes added that she wanted people to know her daughter’s extreme behaviour was only evident in the final few weeks of her life.
“For the other 12 years, she was a beautiful soul who loved life and loved her family, and that’s how we want her to be remembered,” she said, describing Mia as a “happy, fun, friendly girl who had so much to live for.”
NHS Trusts apologise for Mia’s death
In a statement, Dr Manjeet Shehmar, medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, offered “heartfelt condolences to Mia’s family for the loss of their daughter”.
She continued: “We accept the coroner’s outcome in court today and apologise to Mia’s family for not identifying autoimmune encephalitis while she was in our care. While this is an incredibly rare condition and initial tests were negative, we recognise that further testing may have had an impact on her future, for which we are truly sorry.”
Dr Shehmar said that in future cases of suspected possible autoimmune encephalitis, a lumbar puncture will be performed.
The trust will also “strengthen training and guidance for staff internally and review current published evidence of acute psychotic episodes in children and young people”.
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Pic: Family handout/PA
Dr Jeff Perring, executive medical director at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our thoughts are with Mia’s family and everyone who is grieving her loss in such tragic circumstances.
“We are deeply sorry for Mia’s death and recognise the profound impact this has had on those who loved her.”
The trust has carried out a thorough review of Mia’s care and made “significant changes” at the Becton Centre, he added.
“We will continue to work with children, young people, their families and carers to listen to, learn and take action from their experiences.
“The inquest has been important to understand fully the circumstances surrounding Mia’s death. We will now carefully reflect on the evidence heard and the coroner’s conclusions to ensure we continue to provide safe and compassionate care.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. Alternatively, you can call Mind’s support line on 0300 102 1234, or NHS on 111.
Day two after a budget is always an important moment.
This is when the nerds and boffins of Britain’s fiscal thinktanks assemble to deliver their snap verdict on the chancellor’s decisions.
The moment is more important than ever when, as was certainly the case this time, the budget is a big one.
So what did the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Resolution Foundation make of this year’s budget?
Well, as you’d probably expect, they both fell short of distilling it into a single soundbite, but in broad terms, they both sounded somewhat positive.
Money latest: Budget blow to holidays
Yes, there were plenty of big provisos. The head of the IFS, Helen Miller, said Labour have broken their manifesto pledge not to raise National Insurance.
The Resolution Foundation argued that if only the chancellor had raised the basic rate of income tax instead of freezing personal allowances, it would have made the tax rise considerably fairer and more progressive.
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Treasury minister vs Ed Conway
And that’s before one gets into the criticism of some of the other bits and pieces from the red book – the structure of the EV tax, for instance (why doesn’t it try to penalise congestion?), or of the mansion tax (why not just overhaul council tax altogether?).
But for the most part, these closely-followed institutions seemed pretty supportive of this year’s budget – more so, certainly, than they were last year.
Primarily, that’s because while the last budget left only a very thin bit of headroom against Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules, this one was far more cautious, doubling that fiscal insurance policy to just over £21bn.
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Beth Rigby challenges Sir Keir Starmer over the budget
Yet that headroom is dependent on a couple of important factors. First, that the government will hold to its promises to keep spending growth constrained towards the end of the decade. Second, that it will be able to raise all the tax revenues it’s promising in that year.
That, in turn, gets to a deeper issue with the budget. Most of the tough stuff has been put off to the final year of the forecast – namely 2029.
That year, the government will face a squeeze at the very same moment that Britons are all asked to pay more in taxes.
And, critically, that’s the very year Labour is due to face a general election. Does it really plan to fight an election off the back of a contracting economy?
Consider, too, that for all the government’s promises to get living standards growing this parliament, they are currently only forecast to rise at the slowest rate since the 1950s – save for the pandemic and energy price shock period. The economic backdrop, in other words, is hardly rosy.
Still, for the time being, the chancellor has managed to put together a budget that has bolstered her position both in her party and in her job.
Markets remain relatively sanguine – much more so than after Rachel Reeves’s first budget last year – with bond yields lower today than before the event (albeit a little higher than yesterday).
Read more:
Budget takes UK into uncharted territory to allow spending spree
Main budget announcements at a glance
Reeves reveals £26bn of tax rises
Cash ISA limit slashed – but some are exempt
However, this was a complex budget. And, as with all bits of complex engineering, there remains a distinct possibility of large chunks of the budget failing to work.
But since so much of it isn’t due to kick in for a few years, it may take quite a while before we find out which bits work and which, if any, don’t.
A man has been arrested at an airport as part of the investigation into the terrorist attack at a Manchester synagogue.
The 31-year-old was detained at Manchester Airport on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism after arriving on an inbound flight, police said.
It brings the total number of people arrested in connection with the incident at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue to seven.
Jihad al Shamie launched the attack at the synagogue in Crumpsall on 2 October, driving his car at worshippers gathering on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, before attacking others with a knife and trying to storm inside.
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Manchester synagogue terrorist: what we know now
Armed police shot al Shamie after he ran towards officers “aggressively” while carrying a knife and what police feared was an explosive device – later identified as a fake.
Worshippers Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed, with Mr Daulby being described as a “quiet hero” who leapt from his seat to block the doors of the synagogue as it came under attack.
Adrian Daulby, left, and Melvin Cravitz. Pics: Family handout/Greater Manchester Police
He died from a single gunshot wound to the chest fired by an armed police officer, while father-of-three Mr Cravitz died from multiple knife wounds inflicted by al Shamie, an inquest at Manchester Coroner’s Court heard in October.
The inquests into the deaths of both men have been adjourned until February next year.
Three other men were treated in hospital for serious injuries. Two have since been released, police said on Thursday.
The deadly attack rocked the local community. Pic: PA
An inquest into the death of al Shamie, a Syrian-born UK citizen, heard he was identified by his fingerprints and evidence, including his car, phone and inquiries with his immediate family in the aftermath of the attack.
At the hearing in October, Judge Alexia Durran, the chief coroner of England and Wales, said her provisional findings were that al Shamie died of gunshot wounds.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct found no misconduct in the police response.
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Synagogue attacker died of gunshot wounds
Read more from Sky News:
Father calls for unity
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In a statement on Thursday, Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts, from Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said: “The loved ones of Mr Daulby and Mr Cravitz have been updated on this development, as have those who were seriously injured in the attack.
“Our investigation is continuing, and I would once again appeal for anyone with information that they think could assist our enquiries to please come forward.”
Police also said a 30-year-old man arrested on 9 October on suspicion of failing to disclose information contrary to S38B of the Terrorism Act 2000 remains on bail.
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