In a welcome development, the Department of Health announced in February that the DIY abortion scheme would come to an end in August 2022.

However, despite the public consultation overwhelmingly backing the Government’s decision, the abortion lobby and their allies in Parliament are not giving up without a fight. On 17 March, Baroness Sugg tabled an amendment to the Health and Care Bill to make DIY abortion permanent. It was approved by peers in a vote that took place after 1am, by 75 votes to 35.

We now only have days to oppose this deadly policy. If this amendment is passed through the Commons, DIY abortion will be on the statute book. This will mean there will effectively be no restrictions on abortion. Anyone will be able to access abortion pills for any reason, and there will be no measures in place to stop the pills from being taken at any stage in pregnancy, outside of manufacturers’ recommendations and the legal abortion time limit.

The public was promised that this measure would be temporary. Now that other pandemic-era measures have ended, so should this.

There is also a clear public mandate to end this policy.

• 70% of respondents to the public consultation called for the home abortion scheme to be ended immediately. The democratic voice of the people should be respected 
• 69% said the scheme had a negative impact on women's safety 
• 45% of the group of women who had accessed abortion service during the pandemic and had used both abortion pills felt that there were benefits in relation to safeguarding and women’s safety in requiring at least one visit to a service to be assessed by a clinician, (as opposed to 22% saying that there would be disadvantages). Proponents of DIY abortion say we should listen to women, so why are they ignoring women who actually went through this? 

In addition, the two years the DIY abortion policy has been in place, an abundance of evidence has come to light showing just how dangerous the policy is. This evidence includes:

• Freedom of Information requests made to NHS Trusts in England show that 5.9 per cent of women using abortion drugs are subsequently treated in hospital for complications arising from an incomplete abortion. 
• Data from NHS Ambulance Services indicates that on average 36 women every month make 999 calls seeking medical assistance for complications arising from having taken abortion pills.
•  A mystery client investigation carried out by ex MSI director Kevin Duffy concluded that the policy is impossible to regulate. It found that pills could be obtained using false information since NHS numbers are not required and identity checks were not carried out. All of the volunteers were able to obtain pills by giving false names, dates of birth and gestational dates. 
• A Savita ComRes poll commissioned by the BBC at the beginning of March revealed that 5% of women aged between 18 and 24, and 4% of women aged between 25 and 29, had been given something (tablets/substance) to cause an abortion without their consent. By contrast, Northern Ireland which requires women to have an in-person abortion consultation appointment, had a rate of 0% 

Sign this petition now. We must do everything we can to stop this policy becoming a permanent part of abortion law in the UK.