Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the percentage of abortions in which women (1) deliberately, and (2) accidentally, misreport the date of their last menstrual period; and how they have incorporated that estimate into the implementation of allowing the prescription of abortion pills by telemedicine.

The Department collects information on abortions via the HSA4 abortion notification form, which does not hold this information.

The prescription of mifepristone and misoprostol for abortions is controlled by the Abortion Act 1967 and Human Medicines Regulations 2012. During the consultation, women are informed that their abortion medication has been prescribed for their use only and that it cannot be given to anyone else. In line with the Department’s required standard operating procedures for the approval of independent sector places for termination of pregnancy in England, all providers must ensure women are given information about how to dispose of, or return, the abortion pills if they are not used.

Before an early medical abortion can be undertaken at home, women are given the choice to have either an in-person consultation or a virtual consultation. However, if there is any uncertainty about the gestation of the pregnancy, the medical practitioner would ask the woman to attend an in-person appointment to enable them to form an opinion that the pregnancy will not have exceeded ten weeks at the time the first abortion pill is taken.