Why are GRIEVING MUMS TARGETED?

Losing a baby is heartbreaking, not a crime

- FRANCES LEATE

Experiencing a miscarriage or stillbirth is surely one of the hardest things any woman could ever endure, but sadly, it's how around one in every eight pregnancies end. In fact, a staggering 50% of all adults in the UK have said that they, or someone they know, had experienced pregnancy or baby loss at some time. Now though, if the unthinkable happens, a grieving woman could find herself under investigation.

In something that sounds more like a storyline from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale than anything you'd expect to read in 2025, police have been given new guidelines suggesting they can search women's homes for abortion drugs and even their mobile phones for internet searches, messages to family and friends and health apps if a pregnancy loss is unexpected.

So far, women having to endure this hostility at a time when they are already subjected to psychological turmoil include those who have experienced a stillbirth (regarded as after 24 weeks) or premature labour through no fault of their own. As women's rights continue to be diminished across the globe campaigners are outraged.

In England, Scotland and Wales, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks with the approval of two doctors. After 10 weeks it must be carried out in an approved clinic or NHS hospital. The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) claims pregnancy loss is only investigated if there is credible evidence to suggest a crime, but between 1861, when abortion was made illegal, and November 2022, with updates to the law in between, just three women were prosecuted for procuring an illegal abortion in Great Britain. Yet the number of women subjected to the trauma of these investigations has risen sharply. Around 100 women have faced investigations since 2020.