The Health and Care Act 2022, seen as a successor to the Health and Social Care Act 2012, encompassed significant structural changes to healthcare services. The Act is likely to become best known for its formalisation of Integrated Care Systems and copious transfer of powers to ministers, which have raised objections from both the UK Parliament’s scrutiny committee and the medical profession.

Additionally, the Act included the first statutory reform of English abortion law in more than thirty years. Section 178 placed early medical abortion by telemedicine on a statutory footing in England and Wales. The Act thus made permanent an emergency arrangement introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which itself was an extension of a narrower interpretation of home abortion introduced across the UK between 2017 and 2020.

In this project, Prof. Adelyn Wilson examined section 178, showing its significant importance for abortion law in England and Wales, while highlighting the rather different positions in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It explained the legal framework for home and telemedical abortion prior to the Act’s enactment, then examined the circumstances of section 178’s incorporation into the Act and the framework for telemedical abortion which it provided.

Law school researcher: Prof Adelyn Wilson