{"title":"Should we Relax Abortion Reporting Requirements in Great Britain?","authors":"Jordan A Parsons","doi":"10.1007/s10728-025-00512-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46740,"journal":{"name":"Health Care Analysis","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health Care Analysis","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-025-00512-7","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
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.
期刊介绍:
Health Care Analysis is a journal that promotes dialogue and debate about conceptual and normative issues related to health and health care, including health systems, healthcare provision, health law, public policy and health, professional health practice, health services organization and decision-making, and health-related education at all levels of clinical medicine, public health and global health. Health Care Analysis seeks to support the conversation between philosophy and policy, in particular illustrating the importance of conceptual and normative analysis to health policy, practice and research. As such, papers accepted for publication are likely to analyse philosophical questions related to health, health care or health policy that focus on one or more of the following: aims or ends, theories, frameworks, concepts, principles, values or ideology. All styles of theoretical analysis are welcome providing that they illuminate conceptual or normative issues and encourage debate between those interested in health, philosophy and policy. Papers must be rigorous, but should strive for accessibility – with care being taken to ensure that their arguments and implications are plain to a broad academic and international audience. In addition to purely theoretical papers, papers grounded in empirical research or case-studies are very welcome so long as they explore the conceptual or normative implications of such work. Authors are encouraged, where possible, to have regard to the social contexts of the issues they are discussing, and all authors should ensure that they indicate the ‘real world’ implications of their work. Health Care Analysis publishes contributions from philosophers, lawyers, social scientists, healthcare educators, healthcare professionals and administrators, and other health-related academics and policy analysts.