New police guidance allowing investigators to examine women’s menstrual tracking apps demonstrates exactly why MPs must vote to remove abortion from criminal law.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council has issued guidance instructing officers to examine women’s digital devices, including period tracking apps, when investigating pregnancy loss. Police are told to look for evidence to establish ‘a woman’s knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy’ by accessing internet searches, text messages, and health app data.
Humanists UK has said the guidance highlights the increasing practice of police officers investigating ‘suspicious miscarriages’ under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. As parliamentarians debate the Crime and Policing Bill, Humanists UK has urged MPs to support an amendment that would take abortion out of the criminal law for women ending their own pregnancies, as in most other Western countries, and treat it as ordinary healthcare.
From healthcare tool to criminal evidence
Six women have been charged under abortion laws in just the last two years, with healthcare providers reporting unprecedented police involvement. The new guidance marks a significant escalation, with officers now instructed to search homes for abortion medications and potentially access medical records without court orders.
The inclusion of menstrual tracking apps is particularly disturbing and highlights the increasing suspicion being cast over miscarriages by the Victorian law banning abortions. While companies like Clue state they will refuse to disclose user data to police, the guidelines nevertheless create a potential chilling effect around women’s healthcare choices.
The new abortion probe guidance mirrors recent developments in the United States, where women’s digital footprints have been used to build criminal cases. It also raises wider concerns for the future privacy of sensitive healthcare, biometric, and genetic data used widely by both sexes in the UK.
MPs to vote on historic amendment
As debated in Westminster Hall this week, over 115 cross-party MPs and 50 organisations, including Humanists UK, have pledged support for removing abortion from the criminal code for women who end their own pregnancies. The current system under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act has led to around 100 women being criminally investigated since 2020.
Nearly 60 jurisdictions worldwide – including Ireland, France, Canada, and Australia – do not criminalise women who terminate their own pregnancies without assistance from two doctors. With Northern Ireland becoming the first UK jurisdiction to decriminalise abortion in 2019, England, Scotland, and Wales are falling behind.
Humanists UK Public Affairs Manager Karen Wright said:
‘This latest police guidance confirms that women who have miscarriages or stillbirths will continue to face irrational suspicion and intrusive police investigations at a difficult time in their lives as a result of outdated criminal laws, unless MPs take action.
‘No woman should face criminal investigation during traumatic pregnancy loss, far less have her most intimate health data examined by police officers. When MPs vote on the amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill later this month, they have a clear choice: continue a Victorian system that traumatises vulnerable women at their lowest point, or finally treat abortion as the healthcare matter it is.’
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For further comment or information, media should contact Humanists UK Director of Public Affairs and Policy Richy Thompson at press@humanists.uk or phone 0203 675 0959.
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