‘I felt like a criminal’: Record number of women facing illegal abortion investigations
Sarah’s front room is filled with pictures of her smiling baby. He’s now 18 months old. But for almost a year, she was investigated on suspicion of illegally trying to abort him.
In January 2023, Sarah (not her real name) had just delivered her baby prematurely. She called 999 but before paramedics turned up, police came knocking at her door.
“The front room was just full of police,” Sarah tells Sky News. “I felt like a criminal.”
Her pregnancy was unplanned and she had considered a termination. She went to an abortion clinic but was told she was three days over the legal limit of 24 weeks.
“I wasn’t expecting to be that far gone,” she says. “I was hardly showing. It was a massive shock.”
When she got home, she panicked and started searching adoption, and adoption to friends and family, online. She even put abortion pills in her online shopping basket – but never bought them.
After a few days, Sarah came to terms with the pregnancy. But on the Monday morning, she wasn’t feeling very well and called in sick to work.
“Throughout the day, I’d had back pain and wasn’t getting any better,” she says. “And then at about seven in the evening, eight maybe, I went upstairs to the toilet… and he was here.
“I rang my husband who was downstairs to say ‘I think I’ve just had a baby’.”
He was born at 25 weeks, almost three months premature. He wasn’t breathing. His parents wrapped him in a towel and took him downstairs.
“He was blue in colour, there was no movement. It was horrible,” Sarah says.
Sarah (right) told Sky News she’s still traumatised by the year-long investigation
When her husband rang 999, the paramedics gave CPR instructions on the phone. But before they arrived, the police came.
It was the start of an investigation that would last a year.
The police force involved said it “attended to assist medical professionals and ensure necessary statutory processes were followed” – as they would “with any involving the potential for the sudden unexplained death of a baby or a child”.
“It was quickly identified that there was information to suggest a criminal offence may have been committed,” the force added.
Sarah’s case was dropped earlier this year and is no longer active.
Her story comes as the British Society of Abortion Care Providers and the British Pregnancy Advice Service (BPAS) – one of the main licensed abortion clinics – today issue a statement saying women under investigation on suspicion of illegally abortions are “incredibly distressed” that a vote on abortion law won’t take place this parliamentary term.
“As soon as the new parliament returns in July, it must urgently act,” BPAS says.
Before the general election was called, MPs were due to debate abortion law.
Amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill aimed at stopping women facing criminal sanction for ending their pregnancy had been proposed.
‘A national scandal’
“There’s an increasing number of women who are facing investigation and suspicion that they have had an illegal abortion,” says Jonathan Lord, an NHS consultant gynaecologist and co-chair of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers.
Anecdotally, he knows of up to 100 women who have been investigated in the last year, which he says is “unprecedented”.
“What these women are going through and the horrific way they’ve been treated… it’s a national scandal,” he adds.
Some women have been treated in a ‘horrific’ way, says Dr Lord
Dr Lord says he’s seen a rise in police approaching abortion providers for records and information about women who had considered an abortion.
Responding to police inquiries has become a “major” part of his job.
“In no other field of medicine would you expect the police to ask for medical records, they are confidential for a reason,” he tells Sky News.
The official numbers are lower than what Dr Lord reports, but still at record levels.
Between 2022 and 2023, 29 people in England and Wales were recorded as under police investigation on suspicion of procuring an illegal abortion – the highest in two decades.
Police investigations into abortions are at the highest levels in two decades
And Freedom of Information data for Sky News shows there’s been a rise in the number of people taken to court for this offence.
Between 2010 and 2019, 17 cases reached court in England and Wales. Only six of those cases resulted in a conviction. That’s about a third.
But in just a few years, between 2020 and 2023, 11 cases went to court. Almost half of those (five) resulted in a conviction.
An illegal abortion is any attempt to procure a miscarriage where it’s not signed off by two doctors, or the medication hasn’t been prescribed.
Experts can’t fully explain what is fuelling this but suggest a combination of factors might be at play, including increased police awareness of the ease of “at home” abortions.
‘Prosecutions not in public interest’
In England, Wales and Scotland, it is legal to terminate a pregnancy up to 24 weeks in an NHS clinic or approved abortion provider, with the permission of two doctors. In Northern Ireland, abortion was fully decriminalised in 2020.
Women can have a surgical abortion or they can take two pills – known as a medical termination.
Since COVID, the “pills by post” scheme became a permanent measure. It means both pills can be taken at home in the early stages of pregnancy following an online telephone consultation.
Misoprostol is one of the pills used legally in the UK to terminate a pregnancy
Having a termination outside of these circumstances in England and Wales is illegal under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. The maximum penalty is life in prison.
“I think abortion care should come under the umbrella of healthcare,” says Lucie Baylis, an unplanned pregnancy nurse at Royal Cornwall NHS hospital.
“I don’t think there is any public interest in prosecuting women who seek abortion outside of the legal parameters.”
Earlier this year, new guidance was issued by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists urging medics not to report patients if they suspect a woman of illegally ending their own pregnancy.
Ms Baylis says ‘it seems mad’ women are pursued by police
In the first official guidance issued of its kind, it says a healthcare worker must “justify” any disclosure of patient data or face “potential fitness to practise proceedings”.
Ms Baylis said “it seems mad” women should be passed to police or authorities rather than handled as a healthcare patient.
‘Law should follow the science’
But others think moves to change the law are “irresponsible” and “would only have the impact of incentivising women to have late-term abortions by themselves, with no medical oversights,” says Calum Miller, a doctor and medical ethics professor at the University of Oxford.
“The current law acts as a deterrent to stop this,” he says.
“Data from other countries is very clear that when you make a certain kind of abortion legal, it does become more common.
“As an example, in New Zealand, there was a 43% increase in abortions after 20 weeks,” he says.
Dr Miller feels proposed amendments have the aim of “legalising abortion up until birth, which isn’t in step with British public opinion”.
Dr Miller says proposed law changes aren’t in step with public opinion
In an October YouGov poll, 25% of people said they thought the current 24-week legal limit was too late and should be reduced, while 49% said it was about right, and 6% believed it should be extended.
“Abortion laws should follow the science. And it should say at the very least that if a baby is potentially viable, abortion should not be an option,” says Dr Miller.
While Sarah accepts why she was investigated – for looking for pills online – she is still struggling with the impact the investigation has had on her life.
“It never leaves your mind,” she says.
“Having to live with it for 50-odd weeks… You think ‘am I going to get a knock on the door? Are we going to get taken away?'”
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The police force involved with Sarah’s case told us: “Immediate action was taken to secure evidence to ensure that a thorough investigation could take place.
“This was a complex investigation, requiring extensive forensic and medical evidence, and unfortunately these kind of enquiries take time.”
The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Crown Prosecution Service also say these investigations are “rare” and “would only be initiated where there is credible information to suggest criminal activity… often as a result of concerns raised from medical professionals”.
They say they come with “unique” factors and “personal circumstances” that are “carefully” considered.
A workman saved a seven-year-old boy from a burning car in the aftermath of a deadly crash caused by a suicidal ex-pilot, an inquest has heard.
The schoolboy’s rescue came following the collision on the M6, which killed former RAF man Richard Woods and four others, in October last year.
Last week a coroner ruled that Woods, 40, took his own life by deliberately driving his Skoda the wrong way down the motorway while drunk and hitting a Toyota Yaris head-on.
The driver of the Toyota, Jaroslaw Rossa, 42, was also killed, along with his two sons, Filip, 15, and Dominic, seven, and his partner Jade McEnroe, 33.
Cockermouth Coroner’s Court heard on Thursday that Ms McEnroe’s son was also in the car but survived after workman Gavin Walsh came to his rescue at the scene, which was near Tebay services in Cumbria.
In a statement to the inquest, Mr Walsh said he was a passenger in a transit van travelling to Scotland when he witnessed the crash.
He jumped out of the vehicle and used a jack to smash the rear windscreen of the Toyota and pulled the boy out of the burning vehicle.
Mr Walsh said: “We really did try, I can assure everyone we did our best. We only had minimal time.
“I saved a life that day and I hope never to witness anything like that again.”
He added that he has never stopped thinking about the boy, and said: “I hope we will meet again one day and I will give you a massive hug.”
At the time, the family were returning to Glasgow from a trip to Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire.
The inquest heard that Wood, who was travelling at a speed of at least 65mph, would have been charged with manslaughter had he survived.
Recording conclusions of unlawful killing, Cumbria assistant coroner Margaret Taylor said: “I found that Jaroslaw, Jade, Filip and Dominic died as a consequence of the unlawful acts of another driver.”
The inquest heard how Mr Woods, from Cambridgeshire, had served a distinguished 14-year career in the RAF and was a flight instructor for BAE Systems at the time of his death.
Jade McEnroe. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Dominic and Filip. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
In Ms Taylor’s record of inquest, Mr Woods was said to have been experiencing “a number of stressors in his life” and had a “history of harmful use of alcohol”.
Following the crash, he was found to be nearly four times over the legal drink-drive limit and a two-thirds empty bottle of gin was found in his car.
On the day of his death, concerns had been raised over his behaviour at a work conference near Preston in Lancashire.
Mr Woods failed to return to his seat after lunch and was later spotted driving erratically and swerving across three northbound carriageway lanes on the M6.
After pulling onto the hard shoulder, he then proceeded to U-turn and drove southward on lane three.
Filip, Dominic and Jaroslaw Rossa. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Detective Sergeant Deborah Story, from Cumbria Police, told the inquest that Mr Woods would have been prosecuted on four counts of manslaughter had he lived.
She said hypothetical charges of murder were considered by detectives but not thought appropriate because of a lack of information that Mr Woods knew the family or anything that provided a link between them.
Ms McEnroe’s parents, Marie McEnroe and George McNellis, told the coroner they thought it was “murder”.
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A statement from the mother of Filip and Dominic, and the ex-wife of Mr Rossa, Kamila, was read out at the inquest.
She said Mr Rossa, known as Jarek, was born in Poland where they became a couple and went on to have three boys.
He loved playing computer games and had “lots of friends”, she said, and worked at the Wagamama restaurant in Silverburn, Glasgow.
She said she was “devastated” over the deaths, adding: “Our lives will never be the same.
“I am heartbroken at the passing of my beloved angels Filip and Dominic.”
Marie McEnroe said her daughter, a spa therapist, had been in a relationship with Mr Rossa for about two-and-a-half years.
She said Jade had been a “brilliant mother” to her only child, was “really happy” with Mr Rossa and it was “lovely chaos” when all the boys were playing together.
Ms McEnroe added: “Life changed forever that day”.
Ms Taylor praised the “selfless acts of bravery” from those in the aftermath of the collision, including Mr Walsh, who she said went towards the burning car “without hesitation for his own safety”.
The coroner added: “Without his swift response, Jade’s child would also have perished.”
Addressing the bereaved family members, she said: “Your loss is unimaginable but you have conducted yourself with dignity and I thank you for that. I wish you strength for the future.”
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.
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