Campaigners have warned Scottish ministers that they are failing in their legal and moral duties as growing numbers of “extremely vulnerable women” have to travel hundreds of miles south because they cannot access later-term abortions in Scotland.
Not one of Scotland’s 14 regional health boards provide abortion care after 20 weeks except in the specific cases of foetal abnormality or threat to a woman’s life. This is despite the Scottish government promising to rectify this “explicit inequality” three years ago, and abortion being legal on broad grounds until 24 weeks across the UK.
Campaigners believe this is a result of systemic stigma around later abortion, with NHS managers unwilling to offer the service for what they deem to be social reasons rather than medical ones.
Instead, the only alternative is for women to seek help from the charity British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and make the lengthy, stressful and expensive journey to a clinic in England. Although most abortions take place a lot earlier than 20 weeks, a minority of women find themselves in need of care much later and for a variety of reasons.
The abortion rights campaigner Lucy Grieve, the co-founder of Back Off Scotland, said: “The vast majority of women seeking an abortion after 20 weeks are extremely vulnerable. They might not have contacted services before because they have addiction issues, they are victims of domestic abuse or are very young and scared of admitting their pregnancy to their family.”
Others experience a cryptic pregnancy, where the woman has no obvious symptoms. “I had no idea,” said Ashley, who was 23 years old and using regular contraception when she discovered she was 19 weeks pregnant. Although she was in a stable relationship, neither she nor her partner were “mentally or financially ready” to support a child together.
She recalled of her first scan: “I just remember her face dropping. She said: ‘There’s nothing we can do for you in Scotland.’” Devastated and confused, Ashley was referred to BPAS, where her care was “fantastic”, she said. “But I can’t believe I had to phone a charity to get the support I needed. I’m part of the biggest health board in Scotland but they still couldn’t help me,” she added.
Ashley and her partner had to spend hundred of pounds on an overnight trip to the BPAS clinic in Middlesex, an “overwhelming” journey, navigating unfamiliar transport and geography at a time when she was distressed, scared and in pain. The experience was made even worse when they were greeted on arrival at the clinic by anti-abortion protesters “shoving leaflets in our faces”.
Looking back on the experience, Ashley said she was “at peace” with her choice to terminate the pregnancy, but that the stressful journey “did add to the trauma of the decision”.
“No woman should have to go through that. It would have been so different to be able to do it from the comfort of my own home, without having to worry about finances,” she added.
In 2024, 88 women from Scotland were treated by BPAS at their English clinics, up from 67 the previous year. A freedom of information request obtained by STV News earlier this month revealed that NHS Scotland had admitted internally this amounted to “an explicit inequality in service provision”.
“If the NHS can’t provide this service then the Scottish government has a legal and moral obligation to find another provider,” said Grieve, whose group successfully campaigned for the introduction of buffer zones around sexual health clinics.
Anti-abortion campaigners funded by the Texas-based group 40 Days for Life have been highly visible across Scotland over the past month. Although the newly introduced buffer zones have been observed, there was an arrest of a protester who allegedly breached the exclusion area around a hospital in Glasgow in February, days after the US vice-president, JD Vance, spread inaccurate claims about Scotland’s rules.
Earlier this month, another activist whose case was cited by the US state department over “freedom of expression” concerns in the UK was convicted of breaching a buffer zone outside a clinic in Bournemouth.
Grieve suggested there was “systemic stigma” about later-term abortion in Scotland. At present, there are only two doctors across the country sufficiently trained to carry out this procedure and no health board willing to host them, a situation Grieve described as “unusual and dangerous”.
The BPAS chief executive, Heidi Stewart, said the current situation was “unacceptable”.
She added: “BPAS has offered to work with government and health boards to establish a service within Scotland, but that offer has not been taken up. That choice has meant that hundreds of women have had to make the journey from Scotland to England for this vital care.
“Across the rest of the UK, women are able to access this care closer to home – it is deeply unjust that Scottish women are left behind.”
The Scottish government’s women’s health minister, Jenni Minto, said work to improve later-term abortion care in Scotland “has taken much longer than any of us would have wished” and that health boards must fund travel and accommodation costs “if patients do need to travel to England for treatment”.
