The Great Abortion Divide Panorama

Our abortion laws are being challenged as never before.

My body! My life! My right to decide!

200,000 women terminate unwanted pregnancies each year.

I remember coming out of the clinic and heading back towards my car

and thinking, huh, that was easy!

Abortions are being signed off by doctors

on questionable mental health grounds.

That's not only immoral, it's also illegal.

It's a form of perjury.

Yet, in another part of the UK, women and doctors

risk being jailed for life.

I counted up the number of times

the phone volunteers have put in the notes,

"She said she'd rather be dead than pregnant."

Tonight, on Panorama, we ask, is it time to update our abortion laws?

It's 46 years since abortion was legalised,

but now it's back in the headlines.

WHISTLE BLOWS

My body! My life! My right to decide!

The pro-life movement has taken its opposition to abortion

to the doorsteps of clinics in American-style protests.

Some protesters approach women

to try to talk them out of having an abortion.

One prominent group, Abort 67, display graphic images.

I found them shocking and so do passers-by.

These images are informing women

and informing society of what abortion really is.

They want to defend choice and reproductive rights.

We are forcing them to defend

killing innocent and defenceless, unborn human beings.

We're trying to reach the general public, the broader population.

Yeah, a very nice way of

communicating with the general public!

Very pleasant!

Groups like Abort 67 have been accused of traumatising women

going into abortion clinics.

Many women I see will be distressed by the protesters outside

and some are just completely in pieces. Just distressed.

Just horrible.

Really crying, really upset.

Are you comfortable with potentially adding

to their already distressed state?

I don't think that's the case.

Looking at these pictures is upsetting.

That's because killing unborn babies is upsetting,

but these women are going to be making decisions

that they will later regret,

that they will be distressed about.

But the truth is that, across their lifetimes,

one in three women will have an abortion.

The UK has one of the highest abortion rates in Western Europe.

Last year, 200,000 women terminated a pregnancy.

Is that simply too many?

I don't think that the UK does have particularly high abortion rates.

We live in a society where

there is a strong belief that we should be able to decide

when we want to have children.

In those circumstances, it's not difficult to understand why women,

when they do have unwanted pregnancies,

take the decision to end them.

Pro-life campaigners say the law is being abused.

They point to the rising number of repeat abortions.

Over a third of women having an abortion

have had at least one before.

So, are some women using abortion instead of contraception?

I've come to Croydon to try to find out.

It's one of the largest, most diverse

and most deprived boroughs in London.

And it has one of the highest repeat abortion rates

in the country.

Here, I met Maria, who had abortions when she was 15, 16 and 17

and she's had two more later in life.

I was a child. I was a child in my head, in my thinking.

You know, my whole life I was a child

so the idea of having a child was just ridiculous.

She says her chaotic lifestyle

and bad relationships left her with little choice.

People hearing that you'd had multiple abortions

over a period of 15 years

might be really shocked. What would you say to them?

Not to be shocked, not to judge.

It's not something I would have wanted to do,

but in the circumstance it was what I had to do.

Yeah, I might look on it now and think

I could have had X amount of children,

but could I have looked after them?

That's another story.

For women aged 13 to 19 in Croydon,

50% of repeat abortions took place within a year.

So, what are young people's attitudes to abortion?

I joined one community group trying to reduce unwanted pregnancies.

I think abortion nowadays is so easy to have.

I've heard girls say, "It's all right if I get pregnant,

"just get an abortion." And I think, like...

you shouldn't "just get an abortion".

It's so easy for young people to go into clinic and get an abortion.

Cos if you get an abortion,

your parents wouldn't know about it, so I think that's why it's high.

Do you think young people are that flippant? They just think,

I'll just get an abortion?

I don't think it's being flippant,

I think it's just avoiding any issue until the last moment.

Like, you avoid confronting someone on whether to use a condom.

You haven't bought the morning after pill, so you have an abortion.

But then for the same thing to happen again...?

It just suggests you haven't learned any lessons.

I think it's just, they have an abortion

because it's the only option left.

For a guy it's easier because you aren't carrying the baby.

We can just run away, do whatever we want to do.

But, as a girl, she's got to carry the baby,

look after it, raise it, whatever.

Isn't that an issue in society as well? So, it's like a double whammy.

Abortion or single-parent? Which one do you go for?

Community workers here say women can have good reasons

for needing more than one abortion.

You could have one at 17 or 15 and you could have one at 45.

Your reasons might be very different at both ends of the spectrum,

but the statistics would still have you down

as having had a repeat abortion.

Those repeat abortion statistics include women like Zaphena.

She was married and already had a child when she got pregnant again.

The doctor had a look at my notes

and said that the medication I'd been taking

over the last six months or so

could have caused physical deformities,

mental disabilities within my child.

And that he would recommend that,

if I don't think I was up for the challenge, to have a termination.

It was something Zaphena never expected to go through again,

but, after having a son, she then separated from her husband.

Earlier this year,

you discovered you were pregnant again with your boyfriend,

despite using contraception.

Tell us what happened.

My son was about to go into primary school,

I'd just started a new job, I'd signed up to finish my degree.

It just wasn't the right time in my life

to throw another baby into the mix.

What's clear from Croydon is that there are many reasons

why women might want repeat abortions.

But is this what our law was designed for?

Abortion was legalised in England, Scotland and Wales in 1967.

The law was changed after years of campaigning.

Hundreds of women had been dying every year

after backstreet or self-induced abortions.

Some caused themselves horrific injuries

using coat hangers and knitting needles.

In desperation, I tried to insert a knitting needle.

I'd no idea where to direct it, where to put it.

I was in such a state of mind where I just didn't care.

If a woman's desperate, she doesn't want another child,

she just doesn't want another child.

I would go through it again because you forget pain after a while.

The 1967 Abortion Act was intended to prevent

that kind of desperation, but it did not give women abortion on demand.

An abortion is only legal

if it is carried out under one of the medical grounds

defined in the Act,

and 98% are allowed for one particular reason.

The overwhelming majority of abortions are approved after

two doctors sign a document

that says a woman could face mental health problems

if she continues with the pregnancy.

But are so many women really at risk?

Or are doctors bending the law?

In 2011, the Royal College of Psychiatrists

reviewed the mental health risks of abortion.

They concluded that, for women with an unwanted pregnancy,

rates of mental health problems were the same

whether they had an abortion or gave birth.

So there wasn't strong evidence

that having an abortion protects a woman's mental health.

Pro-life groups say this raises serious legal questions.

The key point is that the risk to mental health

of continuing with the pregnancy

has to be greater than the risk of having an abortion.

And, when a doctor knowingly and willingly puts his or her signature

to a statutory document

saying something for which

there isn't actually any medical evidence base,

then, I believe, that is not only immoral,

it is also illegal.

It's a form of perjury.

Some women who've had an abortion agree that it's too easy.

Personally, I would have liked someone to have stopped and said,

you have to see a counsellor before you do this,

even if it's just to clarify your reasons why.

I remember actually coming out of the clinic

and heading back towards my car and thinking, "Huh, that was easy!"

Doctors admit the law is interpreted liberally.

If a woman says she doesn't want to be pregnant

that is usually taken as evidence

that it's a risk to her mental health.

I think it's a realistic interpretation of the legislation.

There isn't a blood test one can use to predict

whether someone is going to get mental health problems.

What we have is what the woman tells us.

It isn't for me to judge her or to be moralistic.

It isn't for me to explore the potential other options,

but to take her at face value.

While some women are genuinely at risk,

there is no evidence that's true of 98% of women who get an abortion.

I think we need to distinguish between, on the one hand,

people being upset about a certain decision and, on the other hand,

being at greater risk of having a real mental health problem -

a recognised mental health condition like an anxiety disorder,

depression, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and so on -

if they carry on with the pregnancy.

Back in 2008, you said

"Women have to pretend they'll have a nervous breakdown

"if they continue with their pregnancy,

"and doctors have to pretend to believe them."

Do you still stand by that?

I think that doctors would be far happier with a situation

where they didn't have to go through

the arrangements that exist at the moment.

But, because they do, we all make it work.

So, in most of the UK,

the law is being interpreted liberally to give women a choice.

But I've come to another part of the country,

where women have no choice at all.

These pro-life protesters

show the strength of feeling in Northern Ireland.

Here, a woman can't get an abortion even if she has been raped.

THEY SING

Doctors can be jailed for life for performing abortions

and if a woman takes abortion pills by herself,

she can still be charged with murder.

THEY SAY PRAYERS

But some women are willing to take that risk.

Sarah already had three young children when she discovered that,

despite being on the pill,

she was pregnant again.

She bought abortion pills online from a reputable website.

It was completely a crisis point.

We couldn't afford it in any aspect, financially, emotionally.

It just was not the right time for us to have another child.

We're protecting her identity

because she could face life imprisonment for taking the pills.

I think I got so far in my life,

I got to 37 I think without really breaking the law ever,

so I think it makes you feel utterly undignified.

I was very happy and grateful

that I could do the procedure myself at home,

because it caused the least amount of disruption to my family.

But to have to worry about every step of the way,

to worry whether the postman knew...

It's not something I would ever want to go through again.

Abortion here is still regulated by Victorian legislation.

Terminations are allowed, but only in exceptional circumstances.

The woman's life has to be in danger.

Last year, there were just 75 legal abortions in Northern Ireland.

Today's demonstration is about the opening

of the first private abortion clinic here.

It has come as an unwelcome surprise to many people.

I think what really strikes you is how adamant people are that abortion

is illegal in Northern Ireland,

and actually they think the opening of a Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast

is going to lead to illegal abortions.

We have the lowest maternal mortality rate in the whole world.

In fact, Ireland's the safest place in the world to have a baby.

Why do we need to perform abortions?

Why do we need Marie Stopes International?

We're offering medical termination under nine weeks.

-The abortion pill, as people colloquially call it.

-Yes.

That's a two-stage process with two different types of medication.

But what's really important is that you cannot walk into the clinic

and just get that treatment from us.

We will not be involved in providing anything that's illegal.

Marie Stopes wouldn't be opening here

unless the legislation allowed abortion in certain circumstances.

That remains to be seen.

There's an investigation at this time into whether Marie Stopes

will be able to perform abortions here.

In fact, if I've anything to do with it,

Marie Stopes will not be performing any abortions in Northern Ireland.

They can open the clinic,

but in terms of what they do within the clinic,

is the business of our justice system and our government.

The pro-life movement has significant support here.

Opposition to abortion unites Protestant and Catholic politicians.

The Health Minister is an evangelical Christian

and a vocal opponent of abortion.

The word or term "pro-choice"

is really a term which means no choice for thousands of children,

and millions of children when it comes to GB.

And I will always resist the 1967 Abortion Act

coming to Northern Ireland.

-MINISTERS:

-Hear, hear.

Doctors at the new clinic will be walking a legal tightrope.

If they get it wrong, they could be charged with murder.

Ultimately, will it be the two doctors at your clinic that make

the final decision that a woman fits the legal criteria for an abortion?

It will be the two doctors working in the clinic,

but they will work in conjunction with other healthcare professionals

that may have been involved in the care of that woman,

to make sure that we're working within the law.

The dangers of the Northern Ireland approach were highlighted

by a death across the border in the Republic of Ireland.

Savita Halappanavar died after her family say

she was refused a termination in hospital.

The Republic of Ireland has similar legislation on abortion

to Northern Ireland.

Critics say it leaves doctors scared to act,

even when a woman's life is in danger.

This could happen to any one of us.

It could happen to any woman going in to give birth

in an Irish hospital, both north and south of the border.

If you don't want to risk jail, the safest way of ending

an unwanted pregnancy is a visit to an English clinic.

It's a journey women from Northern Ireland

have been taking for almost 50 years.

Women like Rachel.

I was in a short-term relationship, it was quite a volatile

and abusive relationship.

And that's when I found out that I was pregnant.

I knew that I wasn't ready to be a parent,

I wasn't ready to be a mother.

I wanted to have an abortion, I wanted to terminate the pregnancy.

Rachel had to wait two months

to save the £1,000 she needed to go to England.

The delay meant she had to have a more difficult, surgical abortion.

The journey itself was fine, I was familiar with London.

And it wasn't, I suppose,

until I knocked on the door of the B&B that it hit me.

It was just me sitting on a bed in a single room with a suitcase.

I just remember getting the knock at the door

and somebody telling me that the clinic was ready for me.

Around 1,000 women a year travel from Northern Ireland

to get an abortion.

When they reach England,

some of them get help from volunteers like Mara Clarke.

Her charity can offer women

financial support and a place to stay.

OK, so we've got lots of steps and stairs.

And this is where you would bring a woman

who had come over here for an abortion?

Yeah, the host would arrange to pick them up at the clinic,

so the woman wouldn't have to navigate her way.

And then the first thing that we would do is tell them

to make themselves at home - this is where you can hang your coat,

this is where the kitchen is here.

And I'd show them where the tea is and the water and the glasses,

this is where the loo is, these are your towels,

this is where the paracetamol is.

I would show them where they're going to be sleeping.

Do you help some women who find themselves

in catastrophic circumstances?

Those are the only women that we help,

because if you think about it, the stigma against abortion

in Northern Ireland is so great that there are women who have called us

and we've been the first person they've told that they were raped.

They are so afraid even to tell a rape crisis agency

that they were raped,

because they are afraid they will be forced to have the baby.

Imagine what it would take to be calling a total stranger

in a foreign country and begging for money.

And when we say money, we mean £10, £5, £20.

So this is where a woman would sleep.

It's a lovely room, it's warm, and Mara is a lovely person.

But in the end, you are still on your own.

I'm so angry, I could jump up and down.

Making abortion against the law doesn't stop abortion.

It just makes it inconvenient for women and families with resources,

and impossible and desperate for women and families without resources.

I counted up the number of times

the phone volunteers have put in the notes,

"She said she'd rather be dead than pregnant."

Having to make this journey could put women at greater risk.

The simplest abortions are in the first few months of pregnancy.

But women who travel from Northern Ireland

are likely to need a surgical procedure,

because by the time they get over here to a clinic,

they are further along in their pregnancy.

It's hard to believe that such a disparity exists between women

living in different parts of the UK.

Most abortions take place early on in the pregnancy.

In England and Wales, 91% are performed at under 13 weeks.

Just 1% take place over 20 weeks.

The current legal time limit for abortion is 24 weeks.

If we see babies from 12 weeks and later who are stepping,

smiling, frowning, sucking their thumbs and so on in the womb,

many people seeing those pictures,

seeing the humanity of the pre-born baby,

feel that we shouldn't be aborting babies at that level.

Although it would have little effect on the number of abortions,

some MPs want the time limit reduced to 20 weeks.

I think it's wrong that in an NHS hospital in one room

you can have a poorly baby which is born at 20 weeks prematurely,

and have the NHS throw everything they have at that baby

to save its life,

and in the next room have a healthy baby being aborted at 24 weeks.

That anomaly needs to be corrected,

and I don't think it can continue any longer.

The calls for change aren't just coming from the backbenches.

Government ministers Theresa May and Maria Miller have both spoken out

in a personal capacity in support of a 20-week limit.

England's Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, wants to go further.

He favours halving the current limit to 12 weeks.

The last time Parliament voted on abortion was 2008,

when MPs decided to keep the limit at 24 weeks.

But 13 Conservatives who are now in the Cabinet

voted for a reduction in the limit,

including Prime Minister David Cameron.

Pro-choice campaigners are worried

that some Tories want to change the law.

There's absolutely no medical basis for reducing the time limit -

the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

is very clear on this -

but there is a lot of political pressure on the Government

from the right.

We only hope they'll be able to withstand that.

Control over our own bodies is actually ground zero for every

social, economic and educational advance women have made in a century,

so I think the right to choose is vital.

24 weeks was chosen as the time limit for abortion,

because from that point

babies are capable of survival outside the womb.

The major professional medical bodies don't support a reduction

in the time limit, because they say this hasn't changed.

Below 24 weeks, nearly all premature babies will die.

Not everyone accepts what the medical experts say, however.

Figures here from 2010

show that of the 247 babies who were born before 22 weeks,

only five survived.

Yes, but you're giving me figures of babies that were born prematurely,

and they were born prematurely for a reason,

and that reason is often because those babies are very poorly.

Now, when you show me babies that have been born at 20 weeks

who were healthy, from healthy mothers,

and then have a look at how many of those babies survived,

then you can compare like with like.

Abortion has always been a divisive and emotive issue.

The right of an unborn child

versus the right of a pregnant woman to choose.

An unborn child cannot be given any rights

that take away from the rights, the very real rights,

of the woman who is carrying it.

The most fundamental right of all is the right to life.

And there is no-one more innocent, more vulnerable

and killed in greater numbers in Britain than the pre-born baby.

Not the Church, not the state, women will decide their fate!

It's not your body, hands off!

I've had miscarriages, I've had children and I've had abortions.

I've been on all sides of the track,

and I don't see abortion as being wrong.

If a doctor or a nurse were to ask any of their patients

why they were doing it, they would always get a different answer.

Governments in both London and Belfast

currently prefer to maintain the status quo.

So doctors in most of the UK will continue to sign off abortions

on questionable mental health grounds.

While in Northern Ireland, women say they are stuck in a Victorian limbo.

It was the circumstances that make you feel like a convict.

Imagine if I'm arrested or I'm brought to court for it.

What will it do to my children? What will it do to my family?

We have two very different abortion laws, in one country.

Shouldn't that at least merit another look?

Next week - Barclays.

After a series of controversies,

bosses say they're changing the culture of the bank,

but what went wrong?

We investigate the bonus culture that drove one of our biggest banks.

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