Email the head of the CPS to ask them to drop their prosecution

Send to: CPSPrivateoffice@cps.gov.uk

Dear Max Hill QC,

I am writing in relation to the case of the woman being prosecuted at Oxford Crown Court for ‘procuring an abortion’. The Oxford Mail, which reported on this case, says that this means she “unlawfully administered prescription drug misoprostol with intent to [terminate her pregnancy] in Oxford on January 27th last year”. She appeared in court on Thursday 21st April and the case has been adjourned until 15th July.

I am writing to ask the CPS to immediately drop this prosecution, as it is clearly not in the public interest. I have read the Code for Crown Prosecutors and I would like to draw your attention to these questions, which the Code shows prosecutors need to ask before recommending a prosecution.

• How serious is the offence committed?

Not at all serious. In fact she is being prosecuted for something which, in the vast majority of cases in this country, is completely legal — namely, taking misoprostol to end a pregnancy. The only reason for her criminalisation is that she did not obtain this drug on prescription.

• What is the level of culpability of the suspect?

I don’t believe that any woman/pregnant person is ‘culpable’ for obtaining an abortion, but setting that aside, there are several factors which mitigate her ‘culpability’. The judge has ordered that a Portuguese interpreter attend court for the next hearing, which strongly suggests that the reason she did not access misoprostol on prescription was as a result of a language barrier in dealing with healthcare services in this country. In addition to the language barrier, she may have worried that her immigration status meant she was ineligible to access healthcare services in this country, or even that if she accessed such services, her data would be shared with immigration enforcement. January 2021 was also in the middle of a lockdown, which profoundly disrupted many peoples’ access to healthcare. In short, there are several reasons why she may have struggled to get this drug on prescription, and it is essentially the lack of a prescription that she is being prosecuted for. Her likely reasons for not getting a prescription should inspire sympathy, not prosecution.

• What are the circumstances of and the harm caused to the victim?

There is no victim, so there is no harm caused to a victim. In fact, I would argue that instead of being a perpetrator of harm, the woman who is being prosecuted is the victim in this case because she is being unjustly criminalised.

• What is the impact on the community?

There is no impact on the community relating to the actions of the woman in this case. Women have every right to seek abortion and it is not anybody elses’ business. However, the negative impact of this prosecution on the community could be huge. Invoking this archaic law to punish this woman means that women in similar situations in the future may feel forced to continue with unwanted pregnancies, perhaps trapping them with abusive partners. Women who have taken misoprostol that they bought from the internet may hesitate to seek medical attention if something goes wrong, for fear of prosecution. These outcomes would be real, severe harm to the community — and your prosecution makes them much more likely.

• Is prosecution a proportionate response?

No. In one sense this woman is being prosecuted for getting an abortion, which is actually something that lawmakers and the public believe should be legal. In another sense she is being prosecuted for obtaining a specific prescription drug without a prescription. If you’re buying a prescription drug from a non-UK website for personal use, that’s actually legal too. Both ‘parts’ of the thing she is being prosecuted for are broadly legal: it is only by invoking this law from the 1860s — brought in sixty years before women had the vote — in this very unnecessarily punitive way that the CPS have been able to ‘achieve’ this prosecution. Prosecution is so clearly not a proportionate response to a woman having an abortion without going through a healthcare provider.

Answering these questions from the Code for Crown Prosecutors shows very clearly that this prosecution is not in the public interest, should never have been brought, and should be dropped immediately.

Women are still reeling from the many, many revelations of police misogyny following the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer. Prosecuting a woman for having an abortion will do very little to reassure anyone that the criminal legal system in this country is dealing with its institutional misogyny. I am asking you to drop this case and to clarify that no further prosecutions of women for procuring abortions under the 1861 Act will be brought forward, as no prosecution of this nature can be in the public interest.

Yours etc