As Parliament votes on decriminalising abortion, Terina Hine examines police attacks on women’s reproductive rights

Searching women’s homes, seizing digital devices and accessing confidential medical records, often without a court order, as part of a clampdown on abortion is an abuse of police powers and a direct attack on women’s rights. The consequence of this action is a tragic rise in criminal prosecutions for pregnancy loss and late abortion.

In December of last year, police guidance was produced on how to support a Victorian-era law, the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, used increasingly to criminalise women who have suffered a still birth or undergone a late abortion.

The guidance, issued by the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), allows police to examine women’s devices for menstrual-cycle and fertility-tracker apps, Google searches and any communications related to a suspected pregnancy. It also allows for medical records to be accessed. 

Draconian, intrusive and undeniably damaging to women’s healthcare, the guidance was drawn up without public consultation or any reference to medical experts or abortion providers and has been overwhelming condemned by these bodies. The guidance must be dropped, the Act must be repealed and abortion taken out of the criminal law altogether.

Just last month, Nicola Packer, one of six women to be put on trial using the 1861 law, was found not guilty of illegally terminating her pregnancy after taking abortion pills beyond the legal limit of ten weeks. This followed more than two years of trauma and persecution. Packer was prescribed the abortion pills by a registered provider in the 2020 lockdown and always denied she knew her pregnancy was more than ten weeks’ gestation.

Packer’s case revealed how dangerous fear of prosecution is for a woman’s health. After delivering a foetus at home, it was clear the dating of her pregnancy was incorrect. Suffering complications, she went to hospital where she initially refused to tell medical staff she had taken the abortion pills, fearing the consequences. She was right to be afraid. She was discharged from hospital straight into police custody, bleeding, in pain and in shock.

During the time it took for Packer’s case to be heard, another woman, Carla Foster, was tried and sentenced to prison for an illegal abortion. Foster’s sentence was suspended on appeal, but not until she had spent 35 days behind bars.

Packer and Foster are not alone. Since 2022, six women have faced a criminal trial for a late termination. For every one case that ends in court, at least ten others are subjected to prolonged police investigations. In some cases, women who were never formally charged were forcibly separated from their children while under investigation.

The Offences Against the Person Act was introduced in 1861, and until 2022 was used only three times to bring prosecutions for late abortions. However, since 2022, scores of women have been persecuted if not prosecuted. In one instance, a teenage girl of fifteen was arrested.

Globally, a woman’s right to choose is under attack. There have been calls to use cases like Nicola Packer’s to change the abortion law, limit access to at-home pills, and reduce the 24-week limit. Nigel Farage in a recent speech said (again) that allowing abortions up to 24 weeks is ‘utterly ludicrous’. 

While attempts are being made to restrict access to abortion, there are also moves towards decriminalisation, and on 2 June, MPs debated a Decriminalise Abortion petition with the support of more than thirty medical, legal and public-health bodies.

No woman should be threatened with jail, a humiliating police investigation or the impingement of her privacy, nor should she suffer the horror of years of being under investigation for ending a pregnancy or experiencing an unexplained loss. The recent police guidance has fuelled hostility and has caused suspicion to be raised in cases where stillbirths and premature labour were entirely natural. Hard-fought biological rights for women must not be allowed to be diluted. And an outdated Victoria law must be repealed.