Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their decision to allow at-home administration of mifepristone and misoprostol to induce an abortion following a telephone consultation, what plans they have to review their guidance on abortion that states that “the purpose of the requirement that two doctors certify the ground(s) for termination is to ensure that the law is being observed; this provides protection for the woman and for the doctors providing the termination”.

The Government has no plans to amend the legal requirement for two doctors to certify abortion procedures under the Abortion Act 1967. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have put in place two temporary measures in England; one of which is to ease the pressures of health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic by allowing registered medical practitioners to prescribe both pills for the treatment of early medical abortion up to 10 weeks from their own homes.