Independent Consultant. Public health research, data analysis, and commentary on the global provision of sexual and reproductive health and rights; telemedicine and self-managed medical abortion; ethics, policy and payment. Perspective matters.
Data obtained from five NHS Ambulance Trusts in England, show that emergency ambulance responses for complications arising after a medical abortion are three times higher for women using pills-by-post at home, compared to those who have their medical abortion in a clinic. Using our rights under the Freedom of Information Act, we asked each of... Continue Reading →
BPAS has reported that its abortion services are “under considerable pressure” and that the number of calls it has been receiving increased by about a third in the six months March to September this year. During the same period our volunteers were making mystery client calls to BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices, and we found... Continue Reading →
Did you know that the Government and Abortion Providers routinely under report the rate of complications caused by abortion pills? Our freedom of information investigation reveals that less than 1-in-5 complications are being reported. DHSC Under Report. The official DHSC statistics for 2020 show a 1.1% complication rate for all medical abortions and only 0.3%... Continue Reading →
Medical abortion doesn't always work; it is well established that MA has an expected treatment failure rate of about 6%. Which means that as many as 1-in-17 pregnant women using abortion pills will subsequently need hospital treatment for complications arising from an incomplete abortion. Ranbaxy (UK) Limited is the manufacturer of Medabon, the mifepristone/misoprostol combination... Continue Reading →
In its SmPC (summaries of product characteristics), Ranbaxy states that there is a non-negligible risk of medical abortion treatment failure, as follows: The non-negligible risk of failure, which occurs in 4.5 to 7.8% of the cases, makes the follow-up visit mandatory in order to check that abortion is complete.The patient should be informed that surgical... Continue Reading →
Surge in 999 calls over at home abortions after NHS controversially started sending powerful pills by post. There is a worrying development, emergency call-outs related to the abortion pills have *doubled* in some regions. Mail on Sunday.
Marie Stopes Australia (MSA) says that more than 5% of the medical abortions it provides, fail to complete. Meaning that 1-in-20 women will have fragments of the baby and/or placenta remaining in their womb after taking both sets of the tablets, mifepristone and misoprostol. These women will need to seek further treatment to prevent ongoing... Continue Reading →
The Scottish Government received 5,537 responses to its consultation asking whether its temporary approval for abortion at home by telemedicine should be made permanent or if it would be better to revert to the prior, clinic-based arrangements that were in place before the end of March 2020. Respondents were asked to comment on how this temporary approval... Continue Reading →
On 25 May 2021, Public Health Scotland (PHS) released its official abortion statistics for the year ending December 2020. You may have already read that in 2020 there were a total of 13,815 abortions, the highest annual total since 2008, and that 36% of these were repeat abortions, which continues an increasing trend year-on-year. In this short... Continue Reading →
A freedom of information request to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board showed the cost of the pills-by-post service provided by BPAS in 2020 was £76.97 for the consultation, and £344.80 for the abortion treatment, a total of £421.77.
Percuity 