Englishwoman faces nearly life imprisonment after taking abortion medication

At question is whether an antiquated law applies to modern-day women who use telehealth services to attain and use mifepristone and misoprostol

A British woman, whom we shall call Katie, spoke to me this week about her criminal prosecution in England after using medication abortion in an unusual circumstance that may bring with it 99 years in prison. All of the ordeal brought a predictable reaction to her. 

“Just absolute fear,” Katie said. 

“You're never gonna see your family again. You'll never see your friends again.” 

In November 2020, Katie received abortion medication that were obtained after a telephone consultation with an NHS abortion provider, during the Coronavirus pandemic. That led to a stillborn birth and a visit to the emergency room. Katie hadn’t realized how far along she was in the pregnancy, which is more common than most people realize. 

Afterward, Katie went to the hospital to have surgery to remove the placenta. The midwife called the police, who came to the hospital and arrested her. She couldn’t immediately leave, as she had to be cared for. So they waited 24 hours to take her to the station for questioning. While there, police made her urinate with the door open. They went through her phone and internet search records. 

At question is an 1861 law known as the Offenses Against the Persons Act, which calls for life imprisonment for some people who perform abortions illegally. Another law passed in 1923 is the Infant Life Preservation Act. 

That prevents abortions past the point of viability. Between 1861 and 2018, there were only three prosecutions of women, though there were more for back-alley providers. But after 2018, there have been six. Police have performed drug tests on women suspected of using mifepristone and misoprostol. 

That has to do with women taking mifepristone and misoprostol. Some activists in the country have pushed for the decriminalization of medication abortion, as I reported before. 

Some of the history of British abortion jurisprudence is worth exploring. Criminal abortion, much like in America, was done in back alley settings, much like in America. It wasn’t until the 1930s, with the formation of the Abortion Law Reform Association, that feminists and doctors began pushing for liberalization of the laws. At the time, some, like British birth control pioneer Marie Stopes–who is to England what Margaret Sanger is to America–hadn’t wanted to focus on abortion. But pioneering feminists like Stella Browne and Janet Chance did. 

Their chance to bring the issue to national attention came in 1938 with the case of Rex v. Bourne. Dr. Aleck Bourne, an OB/GYN, performed an abortion on a 14-year-old rape victim. It arose from the brutal sexual assault of Nellie Hales, who lived in London with her parents, Horace, and her mother, who was also named Nellie. Three royal guardsmen at the Horse Guards in London lured her into a stall where they raped her repeatedly. Afterward, her mother took her to a Catholic hospital where a doctor told them that he wouldn’t perform an abortion because the baby could be a future prime minister. English law called for adoption in situations where rape led to pregnancy.

Later, the mother wrote a letter to Joan Malleson, who worked at St. Mary’s Hospital and was a member of the Abortion Law Reform Association. In turn, she contacted Bourne, who agreed to perform an abortion. When I spoke to Bourne’s grandson, he told me that his grandfather had wanted to take the abortion business away from midwives. The association wanted a sympathetic test case. It went before a jury at Old Bailey, the most famous courthouse in the world. The jury acquitted him on the same day it deliberated. I adapted this for both a play and a screenplay. 

That galvanized the abortion rights movement all over the world. And it’s what eventually led to the 1967 liberalization in England. The 1967 reforms led to English law permitting abortions when a continued pregnancy will cause significant harm to a woman’s well-being. It also can’t be past the 24th week. 

Important things to note about the reforms that came in the 1960s. They stipulated that the abortions had to be done in hospital settings or approved medical clinics. The design of that law was to ensure that women were getting the safest possible care and not entering dangerous back alley environments. It wasn’t designed with abortion medication in mind, much like the Supreme Court precedence after Roe. 

That medical option didn’t arrive until the 1990s with RU-486.  The laws in England are woefully behind the times insofar as addressing abortion care as it currently exists, with the majority of women opting for medication instead of surgical procedures. 

When you add telehealth to the mix, there is a legal difficulty about who to hold accountable for performing the abortion. Is it the provider? The telehealth service? The woman who took the pill who is responsible for performing the abortion? 

Thus far, British justice tends to hold the women responsible for self-inducing it. 

Katie is currently scheduled to go on trial in September. She has been overwhelmed with legal expenses and is currently seeking financial help through donations on a crowdfunding website. Here’s the link. 

I hope to cover this trial in person and keep people updated on what’s going on overseas.