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
Two terminally ill adults on opposing sides of the assisted dying debate meet to share their views
Philip and Clare are on opposing sides on the issue of assisted dying.
Last year, Sky News filmed them as they watched the country debate whether to change the law to allow it.
Now, the pair meet each other for the first time to let the country watch them debate.
Warning: This article contains descriptions of assisted dying and suicide throughout
Meet Clare
My name’s Clare and I live on a farm in North Devon. I’ve got two fabulous daughters, Chloe and Izzy. I have stage 4 breast cancer.
I’ve been campaigning for the assisted dying bill [Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill] to pass through Parliament. I’m looking forward to meeting Philip. I hope it’s not going to be an argument.
Meet Philip
The name’s Philip, and I’m from the Midlands where I live with my wife Pauline. I was given six months to live last year, I should be dead right now.
I’ve got pancreatic cancer. I’m against assisted dying – or assisted suicide, as I call it. I feel terribly sorry for Clare. I want nobody to be suffering.
The pair meet in Bristol – halfway between their addresses.
After greeting with a hug, Philip tells Clare his mother died of cancer when he was a young teenager.
Philip: She said, ‘God, please either heal me or take me.’ I realised that my mum must have believed and trusted in God. Now I keep saying to the doctor that I pray God will stop the cancer growing.
Clare: I think I’m similar about Mother Earth. Whilst I’m not a Christian, I’ve always had this acceptance and understanding that I’m part of a natural cycle.
I don’t have that need to fight death as much as I’m hearing from you.
Philip: I’m not aware of fighting, because in my terms, it would be a sheer waste of time.
Clare tells Philip she would like a “good death”.
Clare: In my garden, with my daughters, preferably one of them playing her guitar – it’s my paradise. I would like to have the choice, whether I took it up or not at the last minute, at a time and place of my choosing, when death is close, to be able to take something to hasten my death.
Philip: There could be a cure for what you and I have got, but we just don’t know. You don’t know what miracle is around the corner, and if you commit suicide, you’re robbing yourself of that opportunity.
Both agree that breaking the news of their diagnoses to their children was the hardest part of cancer. Clare says the disease has turned her liver “20 shades of grey”.
Clare: It’s pretty much gone to all my bones, except for my hands and feet.
Philip: Horrible.
Clare: Then there’s also the treatment. Did you have any Docetaxels?
Philip: I’m very grateful I have refused it all.
Clare: Have you not had any chemotherapy?
Philip: I’ve had nothing.
Philip warns Clare that if the Terminally Ill Adults Bill is approved, vulnerable people could be pressured into taking their own life. He’d rather leave his death in God’s hands.
Philip: I want to do what God says. So, I’m against assisted dying on those principles of the fact that no matter what safeguards you put in, you’re breaking, what I understand to be God’s plan and purpose.
Clare: When I got my diagnosis, the first thing I said to my consultant was, “well, thank goodness I can take my own life”. I’d been very consistent, and I was on my own in the room, nobody else with me. And I think I’m a sort of bright, intelligent person.
Philip: I didn’t say you weren’t.
Clare: I really understand the power of coercive control, the insidious nature of it.
Philip: I feel sorry for the poor suckers who are with you.
Clare: My daughters?
Philip: They’ve got to live with the fact that you died and they let you.
Clare: My daughters are completely supportive of assisted dying.
Clare says dying should be a personal choice.
Clare: It’s not about other people with terminal life-limiting disease or people with disabilities. It’s purely an option for Clare Turner.
Philip: If they alter the law for Clare Turner, they’ve got to alter it for everybody.
Clare: At the moment, over 300 people with terminal illnesses take their own life in pretty miserable situations, quite often alone, every year.
Philip: It’s financial. If it’s costing hundreds of thousands to look after you, just think what we could save if we bumped 20 of you off.
Clare: I find that quite offensive, Philip.
Clare: I guess I’m just not a cynical person.
Philip: I’m not a cynical person. I’m facing reality. I see how it’s been applied in other countries.
Show me Canada and Belgium have never altered their laws with regards to assisted suicide. You can’t. They’ve altered them totally.
Before they say goodbye, Clare gifts Philip honey made by bees that visit her garden.
Philip gives Clare a box of chocolates called Heroes.
“Anybody who is battling with cancer is a hero not to quit,” he says.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.
In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
A man who has spent 38 years in prison for murder has had his conviction quashed – but insisted he is “not angry” or “bitter”.
The Court of Appeal ruling in the case of Peter Sullivan ends what’s thought to be the longest-running miscarriage of justice in British history.
He was found guilty of the 1986 murder of 21-year-old Diane Sindall, who had been beaten, raped and left in an alleyway in Bebington, Merseyside.
Diane Sindall was murdered in 1986. Pic: Merseyside Police/PA Wire
Mr Sullivan – who was jailed in 1987 – had always maintained his innocence and first tried to challenge his conviction in 2016, but the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) declined to refer the case, and he lost his own appeal bid in 2019.
Two years later, he again asked the CCRC to refer his case and new tests, ordered by the commission, revealed Mr Sullivan’s DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time.
At a hearing on Tuesday, lawyers for Mr Sullivan told the Court of Appeal in London that the new evidence showed that Ms Sindall’s killer “was not the defendant”.
Mr Sullivan attended the hearing via video link from HMP Wakefield, listening to his conviction being quashed with his head down and arms folded before appearing to weep and putting his hand to his mouth.
A relative in court also wept as the judgment was read out.
‘The truth shall set you free’
In a statement following the ruling, Mr Sullivan – now 68 – said: “I lost my liberty four decades ago over a crime I did not commit.
“What happened to me was very wrong, but does not detract that what happened… was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.”
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Peter Sullivan case explained
He added: “It is said the truth shall set you free. It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale as we advance towards resolving the wrongs done to me.
“I am not angry, I am not bitter.
“I am simply anxious to return to my loved ones and family as I’ve got to make the most of what is left of the existence I am granted in this world.”
Outside court, Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said she was “ecstatic” at seeing her brother’s conviction quashed.
She told reporters: “We lost Peter for 39 years and at the end of the day, it’s not just us; Peter hasn’t won, and neither has the Sindall family. They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back.
“We’ve got Peter back and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again. We feel sorry for the Sindalls and it’s such a shame this has had to happen in the first place.”
Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said she was ‘ecstatic’ after the ruling. Pic: PA
Barristers for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the DNA evidence was “sufficient fundamentally to cast doubt on the safety of the conviction” and that there was “no credible basis on which the appeal can be opposed”.
Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan, said in light of the new DNA evidence “it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe” as he quashed the conviction.
Hunt for DNA match
Merseyside Police has confirmed detectives are now “carrying out an extensive investigation in a bid to identify who the new DNA profile belongs to, as to date there is no match on the national DNA database”.
Detectives are also contacting individuals identified in the original investigation to request voluntary DNA samples.
That initial investigation was the largest in the force’s history and, for many officers, the “frenzied” nature of the attack made it the worst case they had ever encountered.
Ms Sindall, who was engaged to be married, had just left her shift as a part-time barmaid at a pub in Bebington when her small blue van ran out of petrol.
Diane Sindall was killed after finishing her shift as a barmaid
She was walking to an all-night garage when she was attacked.
Mr Sullivan, who was 29 at the time and described as a loner, initially denied the attack but later signed a confession.
Questions have since been raised about whether he had proper legal representation during police interviews. Evidence related to bite marks on Ms Sindall’s body, considered crucial at the trial, has also since been called into question.
At the time of Mr Sullivan’s trial in 1987, DNA technology was not available and subsequent requests for new tests had been refused.
‘Nobody felt safe’
On the grass verge close to where Ms Sindall’s body was found, a memorial stone has been placed in memory of her and “and all of our sisters who have been raped and murdered”.
Her murder sent a chill through the community and led to the creation of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre on Merseyside. “Nobody felt safe, it was a very scary time,” said the centre’s Jo Wood.
A memorial to Ms Sindall on a grass verge near where her body was found
She says the uncertainty has resurfaced. “There’s someone out who killed Diane Sindall,” said solicitor Ms Myatt.
“The biggest fear we’ve got is of the unknown and now we’ve got an unknown. We don’t know who it might be. Who knows who this person is? Are we going to encounter him?
“We might have encountered him, we don’t know, we just know that he’s out there.”
Ms Sindall’s family told Sky News they did not want to comment on the case.
Mel John, landlord of the pub where Ms Sindall worked on the night of her death, said: “I’m glad he’s being released if he’s innocent. It has been a long time.”
Mr Sullivan is also aware, his solicitor says, of the impact on Ms Sindall’s family.
“We are very sensitive and respectful to the fact that there is a victim, Diane Sindall and her family, that will be affected by this process,” the solicitor said.
Tory MP Patrick Spencer has been charged with two counts of sexual assault at London’s Groucho Club.
The charges follow two alleged incidents involving two different women at the private members’ club, in Soho, in August 2023, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
Follow live politics updates: Your views on Starmer’s migration speech
Mr Spencer – who is the Conservative MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich – will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday 16 June.
A Conservative Party spokesman said Mr Spencer, 37, has been suspended by the Tories and had the whip withdrawn.
The Groucho Club in Soho, London. Pic: PA
The Metropolitan Police said he was charged after attending a voluntary interview at a London police station on 13 March this year.
Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counter terrorism division, said: “Following a review of the evidence provided by the Metropolitan Police Service, we have authorised two counts of sexual assault against Patrick Spencer MP.
“The charges follow two alleged incidents involving two separate women at the Groucho Club in central London in August 2023.
“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are now active and that he has the right to a fair trial.
“It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
Mr Spencer was first elected to Parliament last year with a majority of 4,290.
It is understood he was asked not to attend the parliamentary estate by the Tory chief whip while police enquiries were ongoing.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “The Conservative Party believes in integrity and high standards. We have taken immediate action.
“Patrick Spencer MP has been suspended from the Conservative Party, and the whip withdrawn, with immediate effect.
“The Conservative Party cannot comment further on an ongoing legal case.”
Read more from Sky News:
Man who spent 38 years in jail for murder has conviction quashed
The online drug trade behind QR code stickers on UK streets
The Groucho Club, in Dean Street, opened in 1985 and became a renowned meeting place for A-list celebrities and others, including actors, comedians and media executives.
The club was named after the comedian and actor Groucho Marx, who reportedly once said he would refuse to join any club that would have him as a member.
It was originally set up as a more relaxed alternative to traditional gentlemen’s clubs, according to the venue’s website, which adds that members should be in the creative industry “and share the club’s maverick spirit”.
Before becoming an MP, Mr Spencer worked in finance for private equity firm IPGL, a company chaired by his father, former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Michael Spencer.
He later took a job at the Centre for Social Justice think thank before becoming a senior adviser at the Department for Education.
He made his maiden speech in the Commons in July last year during a debate on the MPs’ code of conduct relating to second jobs, during which he said the “most important thing to the people across my constituency” was “restoring a sense of moral probity and public spiritedness to our political system”.
Sky News has contacted Mr Spencer for comment.
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