Johnson’s Six represent 0.00015%

Those campaigning for Dame Diana Johnson’s amendment NC1, are cynically using the stories of six vulnerable women who have been brought to court, charged with having committed their own illegal abortion. The stories are tragic and we can all acknowledge the harm suffered by these women – the last thing they need now, is to be used as the subjects for an abortion-promoting poster campaign.

How did this happen?

• Across England and Wales, in the five years 2018-22, more than four million women have had viable pregnancies.
• Three million of these women had live births.
• One million chose, for many different reasons, to have a legal abortion.
• A very small number (compared to the 4m) of women decided to have an illegal abortion, which they self-managed without any formal healthcare – again there are many different reasons why they may have decided to do so.
• Because self-managed medical abortion is not always effective, a small number of women needed hospital treatment for complications arising from these illegal abortions.[i]
• For some reason, perhaps her own self-disclosure to the medical team or traces of the abortion pills being found in her body, about seventy women were investigated by the police for suspicions of having committed an illegal abortion.[ii]
• Six of these women ended up being charged and brought to court for breaking the abortion laws.
  • Six in four million = 0.00015%

In consideration of the harms suffered by these women, we do not need to decriminalise abortion, that would be an unnecessary and mistaken outcome. Instead, we need to look more carefully at the circumstances leading up to each investigation and consider how and why the abortion providers or hospital staff have failed these women, or whether Police and Crown Prosecution Service handling of these cases could be improved.

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[i] RCOG states that medical abortion fails for one in every seven cases at gestational age of 14 weeks; the failure rate for illegal self-managed medical abortion will be higher than this. Read more in this Post: Should DIY abortion be permitted after 10 weeks?

[ii] There were 99 investigations in the years 2018/23, at least 30% of these were against men. Read more in this Post: Some are men