Events | 2009.10.17
Pro-lifers win right to see abortion data
• Pro-Life Alliance wins right to see information
• Doctors could be targeted, family planning groups say
Britain could move a step closer to the US-style targeting of doctors who carry out abortions after a ruling by the information tribunal that the government must publish data on late terminations, family planning groups warned today.
They said the ruling could enable anti-abortion campaigners to identify and put pressure on women who seek late terminations, as well as their doctors, and urged the government to challenge the decision in the high court.
In 2003, the Department of Health stopped publishing full statistical data on abortions due to foetal abnormality after 24 weeks of pregnancy, after what became known as the Jepson case.
The 2001 report, published in 2002, showed there had been one abortion at a late stage of pregnancy because of a cleft palate. The Reverend Joanna Jepson, who had herself had the condition, asked the Metropolitan police to investigate.
The Met, from NHS information that was not in the public domain, announced that West Mercia would be investigating because the procedure took place in that area. A local newspaper published a story claiming the hospital was in Hereford. Stories soon appeared naming the doctor assumed to have carried it out.
The anti-abortion UK Life League mounted a campaign against the doctor, whose name and photograph were published. The group put his address on their website and urged people to write to him. The doctor was eventually forced to defend himself at a press conference.
The Department of Health conducted an internal review and decided that where very small numbers of late abortions were carried out for rare foetal abnormalities, such as cleft palate, they would not release the figures to protect the identity of the family and doctors.
But on Thursday, the information tribunal ruled that the Department of Health must hand over the data on late abortions within 28 days to the Pro-Life Alliance, which had requested it under the Freedom of Information Act and been turned down.
The tribunal said it was not clear that the doctor had been identified from the department\'s data, nor that individual patients or clinicians would be in future.
The Department of Health said in a statement it would "consider the implications of this judgment".
"In particular, data on abortions is considered highly sensitive personal data. Releasing such data can potentially increase the risk of identifying individuals. When the Pro-Life Alliance asked the department to release the 2003 data in full in 2005, we withheld it to secure individuals\' confidentiality."
Family planning groups said they were disturbed by the implications for women in the distressing position of considering a termination because of foetal abnormality, and for their doctors. The advice service Brook and the Family Planning Association urged the department to challenge the decision in the high court.
"The last thing we want to see is a culture developing here as it has developed in the US," said Stephanie Whitehead, policy and development manager of Brook. "I don\'t go so far as to say that doctors would fear for their lives, but if they are identified by anti-abortion groups they may come under pressure. It is a very difficult decision for them to make once they get a diagnosis of any sort of abnormality."
Julie Bentley, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, said women would be potentially identified.
"We believe there is a genuine concern that the publication of this information will allow individuals to be identified. This breaches patient confidentiality and leaves a small number of vulnerable women open to criticism and attack from the anti choice lobby," she said.
"It is also possible this decision will discourage women from accessing abortion services because of the chance that they could be identified. This contradicts the fair and impartial healthcare services this country currently provides for women."
Jane Fisher, director of Antenatal Results and Choices, which helps women whose babies are diagnosed with congenital abnormalities in the womb and gave evidence for the department at the tribunal, said her concern was primarily about the confidentiality of the women.
"We know full well how agonising it is at that late stage," she said. "We are protective of the confidentiality of them and of clinicians. They take their responsibilities really seriously. The fallout from the Jepson case was that clinicians were even more cautious about offering terminations [for foetal malformations after 24 weeks] because of the possibility of come-back."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/o[...]-alliance-abortion-jepson-case
