Care for Women: A Parliamentary Briefing

On 10 December 2020, along with other pro-life groups, we participated in a briefing for parliamentarians on the government’s home abortion policy.

The government has just announced its consultation to decide whether to extend its temporary decision to allow DIY abortions. The campaign Care for Women has been set up in response to the government consultations in Scotland and England, which propose to extend this temporary policy.

Brandished as ‘women’s healthcare’, abortions that take place entirely at home are dangerous. They provide no opportunity to safeguard women against coercive partners or family members, nor to go through proper safety checks such as ultrasound scans and blood tests.

Tragically, we know that many illegal and dangerous abortions have taken place since the government introduced the policy in March this year. We need to do everything we can to protect women and babies by stopping this policy from becoming permanent.

The parliamentary briefing discussed the legality of abortion pills-by-post and the findings of a mystery client investigation, which exposed the lack of safeguards for woman requesting the pills through this scheme. MPs also heard the testimony of a women who took the pills and experienced devastating side-effects.

The session featured presentations from Roger Kiska (Christian Legal Centre), Kevin Duffy (an independent public health consultant), Christian Hacking (CBR UK) and Regan King (Pregnancy Crisis Helpline), as well as a testimony from someone who underwent an abortion during lockdown.

You can now watch the briefing below:

You can also download the slides from the briefing.

This campaign is supported by:

More resources:

Find out more about the judicial review of the government’s policy on DIY abortion
Read, download and share our new mystery client investigation report
Find out more about what’s been happening with the policy in this online conference, organised by Brephos UK (a church project of CBR UK)
Read an email from a regional chief midwife detailing the risks of home abortions, including evidence of two maternal deaths
Find out more about #HancocksHealthcare, a campaign by CBR UK to reverse DIY abortion policy
Find out how 277 Northern Irish healthcare workers are opposing DIY abortion in Northern Ireland (SPUC News)
Watch a video by the Good Counsel Network’s Clare McCollough about the dangers of DIY abortion
Read Sophie’s testimony, who suffered devastating consequences from a DIY abortion
To help those in crisis pregnancies, find out more about supporting and volunteering with the Pregnancy Crisis Helpline