Police investigations into Norfolk women suspected of having illegal abortions did not lead to anyone being charged, it has been revealed.
Three women were investigated between 2017 and 2020 for illegally aborting or attempting to abort pregnancies.
Police said formal action had been deemed to be “not in the public interest” against two women in 2017 and 2020.
While a case in 2016 was dropped as “further investigation resulting from crime reports which could provide evidence sufficient to support formal action against the suspect is not in the public interest”.
It comes as the US Supreme Court’s move to end the universal right to abortions puts a spotlight back on reproductive rights in the UK.
Charities and abortion providers have warned laws are already being used to criminalise women who experience miscarriages.
The 1967 Abortion Act legalised terminations up to 28 weeks, with the legal limit since reduced to 24 weeks, but abortions are only lawful where continuing the pregnancy would be risky to the physical or mental health of the woman.
Two doctors must sign off and it has to be carried out on approved premises, although temporary access to at-home abortion pills for early stage pregnancies was introduced during Covid.
However, abortions otherwise remain illegal, carrying a potential life sentence for those who end their own pregnancy. Anyone assisting them can also be prosecuted.
A Freedom of Information request shows police in England and Wales recorded 67 cases of procuring an illegal abortion in the past decade.
Details released by Norfolk police reveal that in one case officers were called after the woman told her social worker had started bleeding after taking “loads of pills” when a pregnancy test came back positive.
In another a woman was admitted to hospital for swallowing eight misoprostol tablets – used to induce medical abortions – which had not been obtained through a doctor.
She was thought to be 26 weeks’ pregnant, two weeks past the legal limit, according to police log extracts.
Louise McCudden, advocacy and public affairs advisor at charity and abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices, formerly known as Marie Stopes, said the US Supreme Court decision was “a timely reminder” that UK abortion laws are far from perfect.
“It is not right that abortion still sits within criminal law and people must obtain sign-off from two doctors before they can access essential healthcare,” she said.
“The devastating news from the US should serve as a reminder that we in the UK can never take reproductive rights for granted until abortion is treated like all other healthcare”.
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