UK doctors warned against reporting illegal abortions

Ann Farmer

January 26, 2024 2 Reactions

But despite the medical disaster-waiting-to-happen that is the pills-by-post system, those at the very top of the medical profession have claimed that home abortions are even safer than clinic abortions: former RCOG President Edward Morris called for home abortions to continue after Covid, insisting that they were “one of the few success stories of the pandemic and should remain in place” because “allowing the use at home of the two pills required for an early medical abortion has created a safer, more effective, and – crucially – a kinder service for women.”

Of course, the “kinder” and “safer” abortion pill – which often is not successful -- has allowed top medics to shirk responsibility for the care of pregnant mothers and their babies, even while GPs have been told to return to face-to-face appointments in the interests of patient safety.

And rather than protesting the risks of abortion pills, the RCOG has protested about the dangers of trying to reverse their effects -- despite plenty of evidence of the efficacy of the reversal process.

The RCOG has claimed that there is “very little evidence to show that a treatment with progesterone will reverse an abortion, and what this is doing is providing false reassurance to women that this is a possible option – which is very distressing for the women involved”.

Meanwhile, doctors offering the controversial service have been treated as a danger to women, not least Dr Dermot Kearney, president of the Catholic Medical Association, whose “abortion rescue therapy” has helped many British women to maintain their pregnancies with progesterone, a similar approach to that taken to threatened miscarriages. In contrast, despite Dr Kearney’s real successes, the RCOG regarded the life-saving therapy as controversial.

It is indeed telling that while the distressing outcomes of the abortion pill have been virtually ignored by the media, more opprobrium has been heaped on those attempting to reverse it than those dishing it out with little regard for its multiple risks; that far more concern is shown about attempts to save babies than to kill them; that it is not the abortion pill that is seen as controversial but attempts to reverse its deadly effects.

Interestingly, the RCOG previously issued guidance stating that “doctors should offer ‘chestfeeding support’ to transgender men who give birth, under the first medical guidelines for trans patients”. According to best practice guidelines, the RCOG also proposed “overhauls of cancer screening, childbirth and fertility treatments to make them more inclusive”, with the helpful explanation that “[a] transgender man is assigned as female at birth but now identifies as a male, though he may have female genitalia enabling childbirth”.

We are repeatedly told to “follow the science”, but it seems that obstetricians and gynaecologists cannot tell the difference between men and women; however, this move is characteristic of the many professional organisations that have been taken over by wokethink, regardless of the outcomes for those they claim to serve. Even if women manage to avoid being killed by abortion pills, it is a far from cosy experience to dispose of an aborted baby at home; but at a time when we are told to protect the environment by not putting a baby wipe down the toilet, apparently it is quite safe to put a baby down the toilet.

But the term “home abortion” is essentially misleading, since there is no guarantee that the babies will be aborted at home. And even if they are, no guarantee that the remains will remain there. Perhaps it is also no coincidence that in recent years there have been disturbing reports of dead babies being abandoned in public places; even more disturbingly, the reports never mention whether the child appeared to be full-term or premature.  

Even if these babies were not victims of the abortion pill, in today’s atmosphere of callous disregard for the health and welfare of babies, some insist that women should be allowed to abort these non-persons up to birth and dispose of them with no legal consequences, with MPs campaigning for all out-dated legal restrictions on abortion to be abolished.

Numbers of abortions have rocketed since the introduction of pills-in-the-post, and the Government is strangely reluctant to release the latest figures or indeed to inquire into the rising incidence of complications.

Given their track record on prioritising ideology over mothers’ and babies’ health and safety, the RCOG’s latest move is shocking, but not surprising. Terrible things happen every day, but the even more terrible thing about this issue is that nobody seems to notice – but just in case they do, they will be warned against reporting it to the relevant authorities.

Perhaps the final irony is that in 1967 abortion was partially decriminalised for the sake of a few hard cases, allegedly to stamp out illegal abortion. Now the very organisation which one would presume is devoted to defending and nurturing life is more interested in stamping out life. And if anyone should show more than a passing interest in the subject, the message is clear: “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. 

Ann Farmer writes from the United Kingdom.

Image: Bigstock