Police have been issued guidance on how to search women’s homes for abortion drugs and check their phones for menstrual cycle tracking apps after unexpected pregnancy loss.
New guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) on “child death investigation” advises officers to search for “drugs that can terminate pregnancy” in cases involving stillbirths. The NPCC, which sets strategic direction for policing across the country UK, also suggests a woman’s digital devices could be seized to help investigators “establish a woman’s knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy”. That could include checking a woman’s internet searches, messages to friends and family, and health apps, “such as menstrual cycle and fertility trackers”, it states.
Details are also provided for how police could bypass legal requirements for a court order to obtain medical records about a woman’s abortion from NHS providers.
Apparently this is based on a law from 1861, so it’s about as British as you can get.
It hasn’t been updated since to allow for “voluntary” abortions either. It’s just “de facto” allowed under the reasoning of “mother’s mental health”.
The 1861 law would never apply to a modern woman receiving an abortion.
As in relation to abortion it is very much overwritten by the 1967 law they give more detail on. No one recieving an illegal abortion would be breaking that law.
But the person doing the task with out medical supervision would be covered under that law. As the 1967 law only overrides it for the patient (by covering receiving with or without medical supervision. And before or sfter 24 weeks.
But it only gives rules as to when a medical supervisor may act. Not the crime of a non supervised practitioner. As that was already covered.
Self medication. While not thinking of pills. Was covered under the 1967 law. Media used the slang coat hanger to include low dose poison use. So self treatment was very much an issue when the law was created.
Edit. More funny is the idea 1861 laws are typically British. You realise most of the US constitution is older then that. But still applied up till Nov 2024 when trump seems to be totally ignoring it.