SCOTLAND’S Chief Medical Officer is to face court action after rejecting an ultimatum from an anti-abortion charity to stop home abortions.
Women in Scotland have been legally able to take misoprostol, a termination drug, outwith a clinical setting, since it was approved in October 2017. Scotland is the only part of the UK where women can take it at home.
The Society for the Protecting of Unborn Children (SPUC) says that it will launch a judicial review of the measure which Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer approved.
John Deighan, chief executive of SPUC (Scotland), said: “The Scottish Government has made its decision to continue with this policy. We believe this is an unlawful position.
“There would be no medical oversight and this development will result in dreadful threats to women’s health.”
Calderwood, however, has said that women being able to take the drug at home gives them “more privacy, more dignity”.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said this gives women the ability to be “as comfortable as possible during this procedure”.
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