The Sunday Times - UK (2021-12-19)

The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 2GN 15

NEWS

Scotland prepares pardon

for the ‘witches’ it executed

Sophie Carter* had just taken the first of

two abortion pills when she found herself

googling whether it was possible to

reverse a termination.

The 33-year-old — who was in a turbu-

lent new relationship and already had a

young daughter to care for — had decided

to end her pregnancy at eight weeks. But

after beginning a medical termination,

she started to have doubts and began

researching her options online.

“I googled ‘abortion reversal’, ‘what

happens after the first pill?’, that sort of

thing,” she said.

A few clicks later, the sales executive

from northeast England landed on the

website of the Abortion Pill Rescue Net-

work, run by the American “pro-life”

organisation Heartbeat International in

Ohio. It views abortion as a “global trag-

edy” and invites women to get in touch if

they want to “reverse” their procedure.

Carter sent a message via an instant

chat function and minutes later received

a call from America from a woman who

said she was a nurse. “She said, ‘We do

have a few doctors in the UK who could

help. Maybe there will be a chance.’”

Carter was put in touch with Dr Der-

mot Kearney, a vocal anti-abortion, Cath-

Doctors are offering a

highly misleading and

unproven procedure to

negate the effect of a

medical termination

Shanti Das

Lily Roberts

says false

claims are being

made about

“abortion

reversal” pills

Dr Dermot

Kearney is

fighting a ruling

barring him from

promoting

abortion reversal

Their crimes included

cursing the king’s ships,

giving an adversary a

hangover and turning into an

owl. Now, centuries after they

were executed amid a satanic

panic, thousands of women

from Scotland are due to be

posthumously pardoned.

Almost 300 years after the

witchcraft acts were

repealed, a member’s bill in

the Scottish parliament has

secured the support of Nicola

Sturgeon’s administration. It

comes after a two-year

campaign to clear the names

of nearly 4,000 people

accused of witchcraft, of

whom well over half were

executed.

A precedent was set by the

Massachusetts House of

Representatives in the United

States, which in 2001

proclaimed the victims of the

Salem witch trials innocent.

Scotland’s earliest witch

trials were sanctioned in the

late 16th century by James VI

of Scotland, who went on to

become became James I of

England and Ireland in 1603.

He believed witches plotted

against his Danish bride Anne

by calling up storms to sink

royal ships.

In 1590 Geillis Duncan, a

servant girl, admitted under

torture to meeting the Devil

and summoning storms to

prevent the king and queen

returning from their marriage

in Denmark.

Another, Agnes Sampson,

confessed that 200 women

witnessed the Devil preach at

North Berwick church on

Halloween, and plotted the

king’s destruction.

Between the 16th and 18th

century, 3,873 people were

accused of witchcraft, with

2,600 convicted and

executed — strangled and

burnt at the stake — after

enduring torture to draw out

names of other witches.

Claire Mitchell QC leads

Witches of Scotland, a group

campaigning for a pardon, a

government apology and an

Paul English

Jo Beth Young, who

believes she is descended

from a woman executed in

Edinburgh in 1629, says the

pardon would be “healing”

she said. “To put that into

perspective, in Salem

300 people were accused and

19 people were executed. We

absolutely excelled at finding

women to burn in Scotland.

Those executed weren’t

guilty, so they should be

acquitted.”

Natalie Don, a Scottish

National Party MSP behind

the bill — which could be

passed as early as next

summer — said: “It is right

that this wrong should be

righted, that these people

who were criminalised,

mostly women, should be

pardoned.”

She added: “This is an

issue that does have a

resonance in the modern day:

by righting this wrong it can

have an impact in challenging

gendered and patriarchal

attitudes in society.”

The move follows reports

last month that the Church of

Scotland is to issue an

apology for its role in the

“mistreatment and

execution” of thousands

accused of witchcraft.

Academics say the church

contributed to the witch-

hunts through its internal

courts established to deal

with ungodliness such as

extramarital sex.

News of the redress was

welcomed by the musician Jo

Beth Young, believed to be a

descendant of Issobell Young,

who was executed on Castle

Hill, Edinburgh, in 1629.

Young, from East Sussex,

discovered the connection

during research of her lineage

on a visit to her father’s home

town of Coldingham in the

Borders.“Issobell was

accused of having a coven on

the hill and a stable boy also

said she shape-shifted into an

owl,” she said.

“The neighbours accused

her of putting spells on them

for bad luck, and her

husband accused her of

trying to kill him after an

argument about an

unsavoury house guest. A lot

of people who are into

musical things, women

especially, maybe feel they

are related to someone who

went through some form of

persecution.

“It would be a real healing

as a collective energy of us as

a whole — a balancing, a real

achievement.”

EAMONN J MCCABE

official monument for the

victims. She was partly

inspired by the case of Lilias

Adie, from Torryburn, Fife,

who was accused, among

other things, of casting a spell

on a local resident who woke

up with a sore head after a

night drinking.

Adie was tortured and died

in prison in Culross in 1704,

then was buried in a box in

Torryburn Bay under a large

slab. Her remains were stolen

by 19th-century grave robbers

and her bones were put on

display at the Empire

Exhibition in the early 1900s.

Mitchell had the idea for a

monument while walking in

Princess Street Gardens,

Edinburgh, where she

noticed that the statues were

almost entirely of men.

“Per capita, during the

period between the 16th to

the 18th century, we executed

five times as many people as

elsewhere in Europe, the vast

majority of them women,”

offered by NHS services,” a spokesman

said. “There is no evidence to support the

use of progesterone to reverse the effects

of [abortion medications]. It is concern-

ing that some anti-choice websites are

advertising this service.”

However, there is no official advice

from the NHS or the Department of

Health that the procedure could be dan-

gerous. Experts fear that official silence

could be putting women at risk. With

arguments for the procedure likely to be

aired in the High Court next year as Kear-

ney launches a legal battle against the

restrictions imposed on his practice,

many feel it is time officials spoke out.

Abortion reversal treatment was

developed in California by the American

family medicine physician George Del-

gado, who said he came up with it after

having “one of those holy spirit

moments” in 2009.

Medical abortions — which involve tak-

ing two pills, 24 to 48 hours apart —

account for about 85 per cent of the UK’s

210,000 abortions each year. The first pill

causes the lining of the uterus to break

down and the second makes it contract

and expel the pregnancy.

Delgado’s procedure claims to reverse

this with a high dose of progesterone —

either by injection or pills — soon after the

first abortion pill. The patient is then

instructed not to take the second. Sup-

porters claim it gives women up to a 68

per cent chance of keeping their preg-

nancy. Delgado says “bigwigs in the abor-

tion industry” oppose it because “they

don’t want women to have a second

chance at choice”. “Abortion is their big

cash cow and their false God,” he has said.

US experts have condemned the prac-

tice. The American College of Obstetri-

cians and Gynaecologists called the treat-

ment “unproven” and “unethical”.

groups have posted promotional leaflets

to doctors including Dr Katie Cairns, a

Belfast GP. “It wasn’t something I would

ever give to a patient, ever,” she said.

“Most of it wasn’t true or safe.”

Lily Roberts, a sociology student and

pro-choice campaigner, said it was “dis-

heartening” that misinformation was

being allowed to flourish. In her first year

at university, she was targeted by anti-

abortion activists outside a clinic as she

sought a termination. Roberts, who is

calling for buffer zones around clinics,

believes the government and NHS must

act quickly to try to control information.

Kearney, the doctor under investiga-

tion by the GMC, said that while there was

no randomised control trial to support

abortion reversal treatment, there was a

“large observational study” and anecdo-

tal evidence that suggested it was safer to

prescribe progesterone than relying on

expectant management alone. He said

abortion pills were remotely prescribed

in the UK and claimed women were being

denied the right to withdraw consent for

abortion partway through the treatment.

NHS England and the Department of

Health declined to comment on “rever-

sal” therapies. NHS guidance says

patients should be offered counselling

and support to ensure they are sure of

their decision.

Nice, which produces evidence-based

health guidelines, said it could not com-

ment either because the problem was not

something it had “been asked to look at”.

Dr Lesley Hoggart, founder of Abor-

tion Talk, which provides women with

neutral guidance, said: “I think it would

be very helpful if there was clearer mes-

saging through the NHS. If there’s clear

messaging from RCOG, that should be

replicated. I don’t see why it isn’t.”

*Not her real name

Many

experts

say the

practice

puts

women

at risk

Women who do not finish their course

of medication for medical abortion have

a chance of continuing their pregnancy

anyway. Research suggests this carries

serious risks, such as a missed abortion,

when remnants of a lost pregnancy can

cause infection or a haemorrhage.

The only credible study of abortion

reversal was begun in 2019 by Dr Mitchell

Creinin, a professor of obstetrics and

gynaecology at the University of Califor-

nia. He wanted to be able to offer patients

“accurate information” on the procedure

but his study had to be halted after three

women were hospitalised with haemor-

rhages. One needed a blood transfusion.

Two of the women who haemorrhaged

had been given the placebo, suggesting

that not taking the second abortion pill is

in itself high-risk. Creinin said propo-

nents of the treatment were “experi-

menting” on women. Those seeking out

advice online are bombarded with misin-

formation from anti-abortion groups.

Facebook advertisements pushing the

procedure are being targeted at women

as young as 18. One funded by the group

March for Life, which holds anti-abortion

rallies around the world, in June, said:

“This is Jade’s story. After the first abor-

tion pill was taken Jade realised that she

had made a mistake, but she was able to

find help and now she has a beautiful son.

Please share this hope-filled testimony.”

An undercover reporter contacted the

Abortion Pill Rescue Network last month

to find out what advice women were

being given. Posing as a woman having

doubts after taking the first abortion pill,

she was given a letter to present to a pri-

vate doctor asking for a progesterone

prescription. She was advised not to take

the second pill.

The treatment is also being promoted

by church groups in Britain and pro-life

One

study

had

to be

halted.

It wasn’t

safe

INVESTIGATION

olic doctor in Newcastle upon Tyne. He

advised her not to take the second pill

required for medical abortion. Kearney, a

consultant cardiologist at Queen Eliza-

beth Hospital in Gateshead, Tyne and

Wear, remotely prescribed a high dose of

the hormone progesterone, which Carter

collected from a local pharmacy.

“Dr Dermot said, ‘We need to act fast,’”

Carter says. “He was like, ‘Look, do you

want me to ring around? I’ll ring around

the pharmacists.’ I was crying so much.”

Kearney offered to pay about £30 for

the pills and £70 for a private scan a week

later to see whether there was a heart-

beat. There was, and seven months later

Carter gave birth.

Her story and its happy ending is typi-

cal of those told by groups promoting

“abortion reversal”. Such groups — often

linked to evangelical Christianity — argue

that successful births following high-dose

progesterone treatment are proof that

doctors should be permitted to practise

abortion reversal for women who change

their mind in order to “save babies”.

However, many experts both here and

in America, where the abortion reversal

movement originates, are concerned

about the practice, which they believe it

is putting vulnerable women at risk.

Kearney has been placed under inves-

tigation by the General Medical Council

(GMC) and has been temporarily barred

from prescribing progesterone treat-

ment for abortion reversal. The practice

is not approved by the National Institute

for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).

The Royal College of Obstetricians and

Gynaecologists (RCOG), the UK’s leading

authority on women’s health, has said it

is unproven and potentially dangerous.

“The RCOG does not recommend

using any medication labelled ‘abortion

reversal’, as this is misleading and is not

Pills that claim to reverse abortion