{"id":47065,"date":"2020-04-02T11:54:13","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T10:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=47065"},"modified":"2020-04-05T08:46:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T07:46:24","slug":"elizabeth-chloe-romanis-jordan-parsons-access-remote-abortion-services-should-not-temporary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/04\/02\/elizabeth-chloe-romanis-jordan-parsons-access-remote-abortion-services-should-not-temporary\/","title":{"rendered":"Access to remote abortion services should not be temporary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"standfirst\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Remote abortion care should always be offered to ensure the health of women, irrespective of whether there is a pandemic, argue Elizabeth Chloe Romanis and Jordan Parsons\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On 30 March 2020, the Department of Health and Social Care liberalised <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/temporary-approval-of-home-use-for-both-stages-of-early-medical-abortion--2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">abortion regulations<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, allowing women in England to be consulted about abortion care remotely and to take both abortion medications, mifepristone and misoprostol, at home. This same change had already been made the previous week, but was then <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/newsbeat-52018805\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">revoked within a couple of hours.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecourier.co.uk\/fp\/news\/politics\/scottish-politics\/1234750\/early-home-abortions-approved-in-scotland-during-coronavirus-outbreak\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Scottish<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/gov.wales\/wales-approves-home-abortions-during-coronavirus-crisis\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welsh<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> governments both followed suit on 31 March 2020 and have also authorised the remote prescription of abortion pills and for both pills to be taken at home. Before these interventions, women were required to attend clinics in order to access treatment that could have safely been provided remotely\u2014a stance that was paradoxical during the pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This change to the law is welcome as it finally ensures that for the duration of the pandemic, women will have safe access to essential healthcare. However, there remain three key issues that are important to highlight. First, these orders only apply in Great Britain, leaving those seeking abortion care in Northern Ireland vulnerable. Second, the change in law is only temporary and there are good reasons to believe that the change should be permanent. Finally, the political nature of the Department of Health and Social Care\u2019s U-turn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What about Northern Ireland?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Remote abortion may now be (temporarily) lawful in Great Britain; however, it remains <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">unlawful <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">in Northern Ireland. A new framework for abortion provision came into force in Northern Ireland on 31 March 2020 following the decriminalisation of abortion in July 2019. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/875380\/FINAL_Government_response_-_Northern_Ireland_abortion_framework.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This framework<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> allows for abortion \u201con demand\u201d until 11 weeks and six days gestation, and when it is prescribed and administered by a medical practitioner \u201cin General Practitioners premises, clinics provided by a Health and Social Care (HSC) trust, and HSC hospitals\u2026 and women\u2019s homes where the second stage of early medical terminations may be carried out.\u201d This expressly precludes women from taking the first abortion pill at home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unlike their counterparts across the rest of the UK, women in Northern Ireland will have to leave their homes to have an abortion, risking serious injury to their health and that of their family in order to access that care. They are also likely to experience a significant delay in accessing care as there are even fewer resources available for abortion care during this time. Action needs to be taken here to ensure that there is equity in access to basic care for these women left behind. There is no reason why Northern Ireland cannot follow England, Scotland, and Wales in implementing telemedical abortion provision, and the failure to do so is causing, and will continue to cause, undue harm to thousands of women throughout the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Telemedical abortion should not be a temporary measure\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The new law in England is to be in force for two years (<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/temporary-approval-of-home-use-for-both-stages-of-early-medical-abortion--2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">until 30<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/temporary-approval-of-home-use-for-both-stages-of-early-medical-abortion--2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">March 2022<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">) or until the temporary provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020 expire. The approval orders in Wales and Scotland are yet to appear online, but it is expected that they are also temporary as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/gov.wales\/wales-approves-home-abortions-during-coronavirus-crisis\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">government press releases<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> make specific reference to covid-19.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abortion is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/what-we-do\/sexual-and-reproductive-rights\/abortion-facts\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">essential healthcare<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> necessary to protect the physical and mental health of women; its provision is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1002\/ijgo.12738#ijgo12738-bib-0001\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">far less risky to health than the consequences of unwanted pregnancy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. There is always a need to facilitate convenient abortion care in order to ensure the health of women\u2014irrespective of whether a pandemic is preventing women from leaving their homes. Even before covid-19, there were other real geographical, social, and practical barriers that were limiting women\u2019s access to abortion care and these will still exist after the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For those living in rural parts of the UK\u2014particularly in Scotland\u2014the nearest clinic can be far away. With recent <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/fears-women-have-travel-further-17535056\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">clinic closures<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (that happened before and were unrelated to the pandemic), this geographical inequality has worsened. Clinic attendance is sometimes an inescapably financial problem. Not only might it require time off work, but many of those seeking abortions have caring responsibilities, either for existing children or other family members. When the nearest clinic is hours away, these responsibilities may prevent a person seeking an abortion early on in their pregnancy, thus increasing the risk of complications when they eventually do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This disaster is going to allow healthcare providers to set up the infrastructure to provide safe and effective healthcare for women at home. It would be a setback if, after covid-19, women are forced once again to return to a state of affairs in which accessing abortion care is, for many, more difficult than it should be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Telemedical abortion services were provided before the pandemic in other countries, including parts of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/telabortion.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">United States<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mariestopes.org.au\/abortion\/home-abortion\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Australia<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. We also have a substantial body of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/1471-0528.15684\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">evidence demonstrating<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that services trialling telemedical abortion are <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/bulletin\/volumes\/89\/5\/10-084046\/en\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">safe, effective, and efficient.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Furthermore, service users also report that telemedical provision is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/1471-0528.15684\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">acceptable<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Follow-up services can also be made available in the rare circumstances where a woman believes that she needs further (medical) assistance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>A political manoeuvre\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While we should champion the change in the law here as crucial to ensure that women can continue to access basic and essential care, the delay in government action on this matter, and the U-turning by the government on conditions in England, should be scrutinised.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We estimated (based on 2018 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/808556\/Abortion_Statistics__England_and_Wales_2018__1_.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Department of Health and Social Care statistics)<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that there are more than <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmjsrh\/2020\/03\/23\/covid-19-abortion-update\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">14 000 women in England and Wales<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who are already pregnant and who will need early medical abortion care over the next 12 weeks. For these women waiting for treatment, the last week caused considerable distress, including unnecessarily exposing some of them to increased risk when they had to access this care. This was both negligent and unwarranted, as the risks associated with abortion treatment <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/bulletin\/volumes\/89\/5\/10-084046\/en\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">increase with duration of pregnancy.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Furthermore, because of the changing regulations there has been, and may remain among some women, considerable confusion about what treatment is available. Some news outlets mistakenly <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5812433\/abortion-coronavirus-outbreak-uk\/?fbclid=IwAR15oaECjm2w2eqbHTvnVdQF-Y8rSfCvP2oMwD1WB6bdiJ10cfc6sKht8_M\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">published before 31 March<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that remote abortion care was already lawful in Wales and Scotland when it was not, which would have also perpetuated confusion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The significant difference between the Department of Health and Social Care\u2019s first approval order related to England and the second a week later, is the express provision of how the order is \u201cundone.\u201d The first was clear that the order was temporary but did not specify for how long the order was operational. Returning to the previous rules around remote abortion that have been in place since <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/768059\/Approval_of_home_use_for_the_second_stage_of_early_medical_abortion.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2018<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (the second pill can be taken at home, but the woman must attend a clinic to be prescribed abortion pills and she must be supervised taking the first pill) would have meant issuing another approval order.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, in the second and current approval order, provision is made for the automatic revocation of relaxed remote abortion rules. This means that the old regressive law, which unnecessarily interferes with women\u2019s reproductive health and choices, can come back into effect without the government needing to issue an explanation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was a deliberately political manoeuvre. It does not require the secretary of state to actively revoke the new rules, which could potentially spark greater pushback than the expiration of a time limited change. It is a great shame that measures with the potential to improve women\u2019s reproductive health will, for the sake of political expediency, cease to operate at the end of this pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-47070 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2020\/04\/elizabeth_chloe_romanis.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"112\" height=\"131\" \/>Elizabeth Chloe Romanis <\/i><\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a Wellcome PhD candidate in bioethics and medical jurisprudence at the University of Manchester working on reproductive health, law, and ethics. Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ECRomanis\">@ECRomanis<\/a><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong> None declared.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b><i><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-47071 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2020\/04\/JordanParsons.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"113\" height=\"131\" \/>Jordan Parsons <\/i><\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a Wellcome PhD candidate in bioethics at the University of Bristol working on best interests decision making in renal care. Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jordan_Parsons_\">@Jordan_Parsons_<\/a><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0Competing interests: <\/b>None declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remote abortion care should always be offered to ensure the health of women, irrespective of whether there is a pandemic, argue Elizabeth Chloe Romanis and Jordan Parsons\u00a0 [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/04\/02\/elizabeth-chloe-romanis-jordan-parsons-access-remote-abortion-services-should-not-temporary\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-bloggers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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