The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) this week threatened to use punitive measures against doctors who report late-term abortions to the police.

Normally, medics have to respect patient confidentiality, but they can report individuals if it’s in the public interest. But now the college is saying in its latest guidance that any medic who reports their concerns to police must ‘justify’ the disclosure of patient data or else could face ‘fitness to practise’ investigations. The RCOG’s president Dr Ranee Thakar said it’s ‘never in the public interest’ to investigate or prosecute these cases.

Where a foetus is capable of surviving outside the womb, we’re talking about a very unpleasant reality

That’s plainly not true. Late-term abortions are those carried out, usually by women self-administering abortifacients, after 24 weeks’ gestation – and some, as in the case of Carla Foster, up to 34 weeks. At that point even the most egregious pro-choicers can’t really ignore the palpable reality that we’re talking about a baby here. Foster was released from prison on the grounds of needing ‘compassion, not punishment’ last year after being jailed for using abortion pills during lockdown to terminate her pregnancy between 32 and 34 weeks.

Where you’ve got a foetus that is quite capable of surviving outside the womb – they can survive in a neonatal ward from 22 weeks – we’re talking about a very unpleasant reality. There are only, fortunately, a handful of late-term abortion cases. But if, for instance, a woman was being pressured into taking abortifacients late in pregnancy, and disposing of the baby’s body, it’s plainly an issue for the police.

There are two points to make about this. The reason there’s been an increase in the number of women engaging in late abortion is likely to be that abortion supporters lobbied successfully for a change in the law during the pandemic to enable women to obtain abortifacients by post. Before that, for pregnancies under ten weeks, the drug misoprostol, used in non-surgical abortions to induce miscarriage and deprive foetuses of oxygen, had to be prescribed by a medic.

With in-person appointments it was possible for a doctor or practitioner to gauge the age of the foetus by, for instance, a scan. As soon as the drugs could be provided without an interview, women could say they were less advanced in pregnancy than they were; Carla Foster, for example, maintained she was less than ten weeks pregnant. Although this ‘pills by post’ scheme was originally due to be scrapped in September 2022, a revolt by MPs forced an amendment to the Abortion Act making it permanent.

So who lobbied for this scheme? One vigorous proponent was Jonathan Lord, now the medical director at MSI Reproductive Choices UK, formerly known as Marie Stopes International, an abortion provider. And who is the co-chair for the RCOG which is suggesting that medics should face fitness to practise proceedings if they report late illegal abortions to the police? The same Jonathan Lord.

Lord popped up to speak to the BBC in his capacity as a member of the RCOG abortion task force to say that ‘a law originally designed to protect a woman is being used against her. We deal with the most vulnerable groups who may be concerned about turning to regulated healthcare at all, and we need them to trust us’. No one mentioned that his other job is for an abortion provider that has, in the past, faced accusations of offering their staff bonuses for encouraging women to have them. Marie Stopes called those accusations ‘categorically untrue’ but the controversy still highlights a potential conflict of interest for Lord.

Does nobody in the RCOG see the problem? They should.