Anti-abortion campaigners have won a High Court challenge to clarify government guidelines on abortion in Northern Ireland. The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (Spuc) claimed guidance to health professionals was misleading and legally inaccurate. The High Court ruled the Department of Health's guidelines be withdrawn. The court found the guidelines failed to deal properly with counselling and conscientious objection. The judge, Lord Justice Girvan, stopped short of quashing the document issued by the Department of Health in March. Spuc was seeking a declaration that the decision to publish the advice to health professionals was unlawful.
The United Kingdom’s largest independent abortion provider is mounting a High Court challenge to make it possible for women to complete early stage abortions at home. BPAS, formerly known as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, is asking the court to rule that the 1967 Abortion Act allows women to take the second dose of tablets for an early medical abortion at home. The act says that any treatment for the termination of pregnancy has to be carried out at a hospital or clinic. Early medical abortion, available in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, requires women to take two sets of treatment, mifepristone and misoprostol, 24 to 48 hours apart. Currently in the UK this means two visits to a hospital or clinic.