Should we Relax Abortion Reporting Requirements in Great Britain?

TL;DR

The paper argues that strict abortion reporting requirements in Great Britain violate patient confidentiality and are an example of abortion exceptionalism.

Contribution

The paper provides a critical analysis of abortion reporting requirements and advocates for their revision in all three nations of Great Britain.

Findings

Abortion reporting requirements in Great Britain are an outlier in terms of patient confidentiality.

The paper highlights a discordance between abortion reporting requirements and general patient confidentiality principles.

The author argues that these requirements are not adequately justified and should be revised.

Abstract

In Great Britain, abortion has long proven to be contentious in the context of policy making, with it remaining a criminal offence. Despite progress over the last decade to permit home use of abortion medications and remote consultation, we have seen prosecutions in recent years. Regulatory frameworks such as this have been framed as ‘abortion exceptionalism’, such that termination of pregnancy is far more tightly regulated than comparable healthcare. One example of this exceptionalism is the strict abortion reporting requirements found in Great Britain. Per these requirements, any doctor providing abortion care must notify the relevant Chief Medical Officer or Public Health Scotland of each and every termination, including a startling amount of information about the patient. The extent of these requirements raises serious questions in relation to patient confidentiality and is, I suggest, an outlier in these terms. Further, it is questionable whether such reporting can be in any way said to be in the public interest. I begin by outlining the Abortion Regulations 1991, which apply in England and Wales, before considering the updated Scottish approach brought about by the Abortion (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021. I then move to examine the abortion reporting requirements against our general conception of patient confidentiality, highlighting the discordance. I ultimately argue that the requirements are not adequately justified and represent yet another, often forgotten, example of abortion exceptionalism in Great Britain. Thus, I suggest that all three nations that comprise Great Britain ought to further revise their approach to abortion data.