British police have come under fire after new guidance gave them the authority to search women’s phones and apps if they suspect an illegal abortion has occurred.
The directive, issued by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), permits investigators to examine data from period-tracking apps and conduct home searches in cases involving unexpected pregnancy loss, including miscarriages and stillbirths. The stated purpose is to determine what the woman “knew and intended” regarding the pregnancy.
Abortion remains a criminal offense in England and Wales unless performed under legally sanctioned conditions. Critics say this latest move blurs the line between healthcare and law enforcement.
The policy arrives on the heels of a highly publicized court case involving 45-year-old Nicole Packer, who was cleared of charges after taking abortion pills during the COVID lockdown. She had believed she was under the 10-week limit for at-home medication. It was later found she was 22 weeks along. That is well past the legal threshold for unsupervised termination.
Police officials insist the new investigative powers won’t be used lightly. An NPCC spokesperson said: “Police do not routinely investigate unexpected pregnancy loss. We recognise how traumatic the experience of losing a child is, with many complexities involved, and any investigation of this nature and individuals will always be treated with the utmost sensitivity and compassion.”
Women’s rights groups and health experts are sounding alarms. Rhiannon White of the menstrual health app Clue said her company would never cooperate with authorities in such investigations. “We have never – and will never – share health data with authorities. We will aggressively challenge any such requests and will never allow our members’ data to be used against them.”
Harriet Wistrich of the Centre for Women’s Justice criticized the rollout. She said: “The experience of late termination is often traumatic and to compound this with an intrusive investigation into the woman concerned is an outrageous waste of the limited resources available to criminal justice agencies, who should be focussing on protecting the public from real crime.”
Dr. Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, agreed, saying: “Women in these circumstances have a right to compassionate care and to have their dignity and privacy respected, not to have their homes, phones, computers and health apps searched, or be arrested and interrogated.”