cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/7645717
Police in the United Kingdom are using data from period tracking apps and mass spectrometry tests conducted on blood, placenta, and urine to investigate patients who have had “unexplained” miscarriages.
Though abortion is legal in the UK, there are TRAP laws in place requiring certain conditions to be met first, paramount of which is that two separate doctors need to agree that the patient meets the criteria of the 1967 Abortion Act before any treatment can go ahead. Self-managed abortion is a criminal offense with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in the UK, as is any abortion performed after the pregnancy has progressed passed 23 weeks and six days, unless the patient is at risk of serious physical harm or death, or the fetus has severe developmental anomalies.
Possibly sex selective abortions, which are illegal.
That’s one possibility. Or it could be a ‘miscarriag’ that was actually a post 24 week abortion. Abortions can be carried out after 24 weeks in very limited circumstances – for example, if the mother’s life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability.
Sex can be determined at 9 weeks via blood test, so it would still be possible to legally abort before 12 weeks with that knowledge as long as you don’t disclose your reasoning.