A gaggle of MPs has tabled an amendment to reinstate in-person consultations for home abortions.
The cross-party group of 46 MPs is being led by Flick Drummond, Conservative MP for the Meon Valley.
The amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill would require women to have an in-person consultation with a medical skilled before being allowed to take abortion pills at home.
Supporters of the amendment include former Cabinet ministers Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, and former deputy prime ministers, Thérèse Coffey and Damian Green.
Polling published within the Daily Telegraph shows strong support amongst women (71%) for the reinstatement of in-person appointments while only 16% of the general public support current proposals to decriminalise abortion.
There can also be strong support for in-person consultations amongst medical professionals, with a whole lot adding their name to a letter to MPs. They say the consultations ought to be reinstated due to health risks related to each pills being taken without in-person oversight.
In a case that made headlines last yr, Carla Foster was jailed for taking abortion pills over the 10-week legal limit. She was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant on the time.
Drummond told The Telegraph that girls using abortion pills at home without an in-person consultation were “being put at risk from the intense risks related to missed health issues, abortion coercion and the danger of self-administered late-term abortions”.
“My amendment would reinstate in-person consultations, where medical professionals would have the chance to accurately assess, in-person, any likely health risks for a girl taking abortion pills, her gestational age and the potential of a coerced abortion,” she said.
“Women would proceed to have the ability to have a medical abortion at home, but with the vital safeguards that include an in-person consultation. This is a commonsense proposal that already has widespread support from across the House.”
Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “Only two years ago, the vote to make at-home abortions permanently available passed by just 27 votes. Numerous MPs had serious concerns in regards to the negative impact these schemes would have on women.
“Since then, we now have seen these concerns borne out, with women akin to Carla Foster performing at-home abortions well beyond the 24-week closing date, putting their health at serious risk.
“If Carla Foster had been given an in-person consultation, where her gestation might have been accurately determined, she wouldn’t have been capable of access abortion pills and this tragic case would have been prevented.
“The clear solution here is the urgent reinstatement of in-person appointments. This would prevent women’s lives from being put in danger from self-administered late-term abortions.”
