this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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British Police are Using Period Tracker Data and Blood Tests To Investigate Patients Who Miscarry (www.themarysue.com)
submitted 1 year ago by DevCat@lemmy.world to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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Police in the United Kingdom are using data from period tracking apps and mass spectrometry tests conducted on blood, placenta, and urine to investigate patients who have had “unexplained” miscarriages.

Though abortion is legal in the UK, there are TRAP laws in place requiring certain conditions to be met first, paramount of which is that two separate doctors need to agree that the patient meets the criteria of the 1967 Abortion Act before any treatment can go ahead. Self-managed abortion is a criminal offense with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in the UK, as is any abortion performed after the pregnancy has progressed passed 23 weeks and six days, unless the patient is at risk of serious physical harm or death, or the fetus has severe developmental anomalies.

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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, you never hear the UK mentioned as a place with abortion restrictions, but they have life in prison as a hypothetically administerable sentence for it, if done the wrong way.

[–] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Technically abortion is illegal. There has to be a medical reason for the abortion. In practice a Doctor would consider not wanting to be pregnant would make an abortion necessary. Practice and society expectations differ from the actual law.

This would suggest no prosector would bring charges against anyone, as it wouldn't be in the public interest. So the police shouldn't wast resources on it.

There has also been a rise in abortions lately. It appears to be down to misinformation online about contraception.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They should really get the de facto law written up officially, then.

[–] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, but it costs political capital for very little gain. People won't see it as a pro-abortion move. But anti-abortion people will see it as a pro-abortion move.

The UK doesn't have the same public debate about abortion as we see in the USA. However, there is a quiet contingent of anti-abortion politicians.

The conservatives won't move against them. The Tory strategy has been to embrace all positions to the right of them that get any steam. It's seen them move from being the party bring the UK into the EU to leaving it. Being responsible for the the creation of the ECHR to calling for its end. If the Tories made this change in legislation they would anger the the right of their party. This would cause them to flip position back to where we are now. The total result would have them lose moderate votes that would no longer trust them with women's health care.