Early medical abortion and COVID-19: R (Christian Concern)

On 19 May, at a rolled-up hearing, the Divisional Court (Singh LJ and Chamberlain J) dismissed a challenge to the decision of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to make changes to certain abortion measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the requirements in s.1 of the Abortion Act 1967 is that any treatment for the termination of pregnancy must be carried out either in a type of hospital which is there specified or “in a place approved for the purposes of this section by the Secretary of State”. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 amended the 1967 Act by inserting subsection (3A), which provides that the power to approve a place includes power “to approve a class of places”. Continue reading