The top doctor in Scotland could face legal action for allowing women to kill their unborn babies at home with dangerous abortion drugs.
Lawyers for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) gave notice to Dr. Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s chief medical officer, that they intend to challenge her decision if she does not reverse it within three weeks, the Telegraph reports.
The pro-life group said Calderwood’s decision basically legalizes “backroom abortions” in Scotland, and the potential health risks “for mothers and their babies are horrific.”
In October, Calderwood instructed health boards to allow women to take the abortion drug misoprostol at home, rather than in an abortion clinic. The current practice in the United Kingdom is that women take both abortion drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, in an abortion clinic or hospital so that their condition may be monitored for safety.
Calderwood called the move “progress,” but pro-life groups warned that it would put women’s lives at risk.
SPUC argued that Calderwood’s decision violates the 1967 Abortion Act, which requires that a medical professional be present when a woman has an abortion. The group said the abortion law “was not intended to allow abortions to take place at home.”
Here’s more from the report:
The letter to Dr Calderwood states that the Scottish Government regulations allowing misoprostol to be taken at home “are unlawful and effectively act to remove the current stringent medical oversight from the process, thereby endangering the lives of women.”
It warns: “We are writing to you to put you on notice that it is our intention to formally challenge the Regulations should they not be withdrawn within 14 days of the date of this letter. Given the Christmas holidays, we will extend this time limit to Friday, 5 January 2018.”
Failure to comply by noon that day will lead to legal action “without further notice”, it states.
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According to The Christian Institute, the Scottish leader made the decision without parliament or public input.
The Scottish government said it has the power to change the administration of the abortion drugs under the 1967 Abortion Act, The Week reports.
“We’re not changing any of the process around abortion,” Calderwood said when she announced the change. “Women come forward, as they always will have done, we have doctors to speak to them, there are consent forms to sign and everything is done exactly as previously in the Abortion Act law. The only difference here is the second tablet, which has traditionally up ‘til now been given in a hospital setting, can be offered to women if it is clinically safe for them to take home.”
Studies indicate the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, which typically are taken together, can be dangerous and even deadly to the mother, as well as her unborn child.
The abortion drug mifepristone is responsible for the deaths of dozens of women worldwide, including several in the United States, and it has injured at least 1,100 women in the United States, according to 2006 figures from the Food and Drug Administration. A Planned Parenthood study even admitted at least one woman is seriously injured from the abortion pill daily.
John Deighan, chief executive of SPUC, reacted to the news this way in October: “The reality is that this will have many vulnerable women who may be desperate about the situation they are in, pushed towards what is seen as the easy option of being handed some drugs and sent home to stop being a problem for society.”
