A pregnant woman who told her GP she was considering an abortion says she was “shocked and traumatised” after receiving a leaflet for an anti-abortion group.
The 38-year-old woman says she was seeking treatment for a bladder problem on July 19 when a doctor at All Saints Medical Center in Plumstead, south-east London, asked if she was pregnant.
When she said she was, she claims the GP asked if it was “happy news”, before handing her a leaflet for the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) when she said that ” she wasn’t sure” and was considering a discharge.
The leaflet, titled Abortion: Your Right to Know, had phone numbers for services run by anti-abortion groups that claim to offer pregnancy support. He also listed the potential risks of abortion, which he falsely said included depression, anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD, infertility and breast cancer.
The woman, who asked not to be named because her family was unaware of the pregnancy, also claims the doctor gave her inaccurate fertility advice and told her the abortion could affect her ability to conceive in the future.
He says he left the appointment in shock. “When I looked closely at the brochure, I realized it had a day-by-day calendar of ‘what happens to your fetus today,’ and the first day is, ‘A new life is created,'” she said. “It was really annoying. It didn’t make me feel guilty because I have modern views on abortion, but that’s what it felt like it was designed for.”
South East London Integrated Care System, which brings together NHS services and local councils, said: “We take matters like this very seriously and are currently investigating the alleged incident with the GP practice.”
Guidance from the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, clearly states that doctors “must never express their personal beliefs to patients in a way that exploits their vulnerability or is likely to cause them distress”, and must ensure that the information they share with patients is objective. , accurate and up to date. The NHS website says that having an abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer or mental health problems, nor does it affect a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant in the future.
The charity that issued the leaflet, SPUC, is a prominent anti-abortion group with a history of spreading abortion misinformation. In 2019, he was exposed for launching a Toy Story-themed campaign, aimed at children, which falsely claimed that fetuses can feel pain just 10 weeks after conception.
GPs in other parts of the UK have told the Observer that anti-abortion charities have sent leaflets. In these cases, leaflets were not given to patients, but Dr Pam Lowe, of Aston University in Birmingham, who is an expert on campaigning by anti-abortion groups, said the incidents suggested wider efforts by militants to target doctors in the hope that they might distribute the leaflets, either by accident or because they were sympathetic. “The concern is that some people may rely on this information because they get it from their doctor,” he said.
Dr Katie Cairns, a doctor in Belfast, said she was sent unbranded leaflets promoting the ‘reversal’ of abortion in 2020. “About 18 months ago.”
In a separate incident about three years ago, a patient in Cornwall found a SPUC leaflet in the waiting room of her GP’s surgery, according to MSI Reproductive Choices. Dr Jonathan Lord, an NHS gynecologist and medical director of the MSI, said the information contained in the leaflets he had seen was “false, biased, designed to scare women and cause guilt”, and that any case of patients to receive leaflets would be “worrying”. . “It would be deeply irresponsible, but given the tactics used by anti-abortion groups, they may not have realized the leaflets were there, or how misleading they are,” he said.
Kerry Abel, president of Abortion Rights, a pro-choice campaign group, said misinformation had the potential to “delay access to abortion, making the procedure more dangerous”.
The SPUC claimed it had “only provided leaflets to GPs who had requested them”. He said: “SPUC contacted GPs between 2015 and 2016, informing them that leaflets were available, if they wished to receive them. Leaflets were then sent to GPs who specifically requested them. The purpose of this was to provide doctors with the information they could offer to patients presenting for an abortion, particularly those who may have been ambivalent about their decision.”
It has previously denied spreading misinformation about abortion, claiming its content is based on “scientific facts about life before birth.”
In July, the NHS removed a listing from its website for SPUC which led people to links for the group’s hotline and “counseling” for “abortion victims,” according to Vice World News.