Sharon Gaffka: "I had an abortion and a miscarriage – and our current laws left me terrified during both"
As powerful anti-choice groups seek to roll back reproductive rights in the UK - as we've seen in the US and Europe - Cosmopolitan has joined forces with BPAS, the UK's leading abortion care service, on a new campaign: End 1861. It hopes to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales.
Head here to take action to raise your voice for choice and fight for bodily autonomy.Growing up, I saw people on the internet call abortion 'the easy way out.' Women were accused of being irresponsible, of not 'taking responsibility' for being clumsy, reckless, or not 'careful enough.' But let me tell you something: two of the hardest moments of my life were a miscarriage and an at-home early medical abortion. Nothing about either was easy.
Living through both of these experiences hammered home the reality of our current abortion law and its real-world impact.
One was my choice. The other was completely out of my control. But both were painful, lonely, and traumatising. Something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Along with knowing that, in the eyes of the law, I could be treated not as a patient, but as a suspected criminal.
My miscarriage was sudden and brutal. I hadn't yet made any decision about the pregnancy, but my body made it for me. I was alone at home, in agony, bleeding and terrified. I called for help because I feared for my life. I didn't want to be on my own. But the idea that someone might suspect I had done something to cause my miscarriage never crossed my mind... until I found out they could. Because under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, women who have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths have found themselves being investigated by police, under suspicion for illegal abortions. Those found guilty can be jailed for life.
This included a 15-year-old girl, who suffered an unexplained early still birth. Police were called by hospital staff who believed she had taken a substance bought online to end her pregnancy.
She had her phone and laptop seized, with police performing an invasive digital strip search, including reading text messages she had exchanged with her boyfriend expressing worry about her pregnancy. The case was dropped after postmortem tests found the baby had probably been stillborn because of natural causes.
During my abortion, I bled so heavily that I passed out and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance [Editor's note: abortion is a safe and common medical procedure, but like any, complications can occur albeit rarely]. Despite taking the pills legally and as prescribed, the bleeding was so severe that I had to have an additional procedure to remove remaining tissue from my uterus. My legs were in stirrups. Exposed. Shaking. Humiliated. I felt guilty. I felt ashamed. And on top of that, I was scared, scared that even though I was well within the legal limit, my experience could still raise questions.
I wasn't just vulnerable physically or emotionally. I felt vulnerable to being investigated. The pills I had taken were prescribed to me after a phone consultation. I wasn't anywhere near the 24-week limit. But the pain was so intense, the bleeding so severe, I started to question myself. What if I'd miscalculated the dates? What if someone thought I'd lied? It was terrifying. I couldn't think straight. It might sound paranoid, but this very thing happened. Nicola Packer, who was found not guilty of having an illegal abortion this month, and who was prescribed abortion pills over the phone.
She was 26 weeks pregnant but believed, at the time, she was six weeks pregnant. It took five years to clear her name.
You might not feel sorry for me. Maybe you think, well, it was 'my choice.' Fine. But think about this. That law that is still in place today, in England, in Wales, it's older than women's right to vote. Older than the NHS. Older than almost every right we've fought to gain. And it's being used more and more frequently.
When Roe v Wade happened in the US, it caused people at home to be outraged, and rightly so. But we also thought we were safe. 'That would never happen in the UK,' they said. 'We're more progressive.' But that outrage is built on a false sense of security. The very drugs that saved my life, in different ways, in both of those experiences, are being banned across parts of the US. And here, in the UK, our laws are hanging by a thread.
A change in government could change everything. Because our reproductive rights are still built on a 19th century law that treats pregnancy as a crime waiting to happen.
When I had my abortion, yes, I had access to medical care. Yes, I had the dignity of being at home. But I also had fear. If the pills had arrived too late. If something had gone wrong. If someone had reported me. I could have been investigated, interrogated, even charged. All while going through something that was already unbearable.
And here's what matters: in both of those moments, I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was putting my life first. My wants. My needs. My health. I wasn't committing a crime. I was trying to survive. That's what 'pro-life' should mean.
This isn't a distant threat. Between 2012 and 2022, at least 17 women in England and Wales were investigated for ending their pregnancies. In the last three years alone, six have been prosecuted. BPAS has received almost 100 police requests for patients' confidential records — including for teenage girls, survivors of domestic abuse, and women who miscarried unexpectedly at home.
This is happening. Right now. Here. In the UK.
Abortion is still criminalised under the 1861 Act. The 1967 Abortion Act introduced a legal defence of two doctors who approved the procedure, but it didn't take abortion out of the criminal code. In England and Wales, it's still legally punishable by life imprisonment.
That's why I'm backing the End 1861 campaign. This month, MPs have the chance to vote for an amendment that will finally decriminalise abortion. Reports suggest this reform is expected to pass through Parliament this week, but it is not guaranteed until it happens.
That's why every single one of us needs to put pressure on our MP. We need them to vote to pass this reform. Not later. Not next year. Now.
It won't change how services are delivered. It won't change time limits. It will just recognise that abortion is what it's always been: healthcare.
Every day this law remains in place, women remain at risk. The fear. The silence. The shame. The threat of being treated like a criminal just for surviving something horrific. Whether you've had an abortion or a miscarriage, that legal shadow hangs over you.
Abortion is common. Miscarriage is even more so. What's not common, and what should never be acceptable, is a law that punishes women for surviving the hardest, most vulnerable moments of their lives.
This campaign matters. I stand behind it.
Because no one should grieve a pregnancy loss with a police officer watching.
Because no one should be scared to go to hospital.
Because no one should ever be punished for putting their life first.
It's time to trust women.
It's time to decriminalise pregnancy.
It's time to drag this law out of the 19th century and into the reality we live in.
Join the campaign to End 1861 and email your MP using this template, urging them to vote in favour of the NC1 amendment to the Crime and Policing bill this week
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Boston Globe
03-08-2025
- Boston Globe
Derk Sauer, champion of a free press in a new Russia, dies at 72
Mr. Sauer, a lifelong socialist, continued to promote these freedoms after President Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999 and began dismantling Russia's nascent democracy. Advertisement 'He kept on defending journalism until his very last breath,' Pjotr Sauer, who writes for The Guardian, said in a phone interview Friday. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Mr. Sauer was fatally wounded in a 'freak accident' while sailing with his wife, Ellen Verbeek, his son said. Mr. Sauer was under the deck when the boat hit an underwater rock, causing him to fall from a set of stairs and land on his back, his son said. Mr. Sauer underwent surgery at a hospital in Athens before being transferred to a hospital in Amsterdam, where he spent 10 days, Pjotr Sauer said. After leaving the hospital in Amsterdam, Mr. Sauer spent his final days at a family home in Zeeland with his wife and sons. Mr. Sauer's ability to combine high-quality journalism with business acumen made him a wealthy man. Advertisement He introduced glossy magazines to Russia, beginning with a highly successful local edition of Cosmopolitan. After decades of shortages and travel restrictions, Russians in the 1990s flocked to these aspirational titles for a taste of Western pop culture and consumerism. Mr. Sauer's business newspaper, Vedomosti , set the standard in Russia for reporting on the high-wire drama of the country's booming but corrupt capitalist economy. His English-language newspaper, The Moscow Times, tapped into Russia's small but wealthy new community of expatriates. The paper became a training ground for some of the most prominent Russia experts in Western media, including Ellen Barry of The New York Times and David Filipov, a former Moscow bureau chief for The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. 'He brought Russia something they'd never seen, which was quality Western journalism,' Pjotr Sauer said. Derk Erik Sauer was born on Oct. 31, 1952, into a well-off Amsterdam family. His father, Hendrik Sauer, ran a large pension fund, and his mother, Evelien Tazelaar, was a stay-at-home parent. In media interviews, Derk Sauer said that he had rebelled against the social conventions imposed by his father, whom he described as a 'respectable man, incorruptible, exceptionally conscientious.' As a teenager, he joined the Netherlands' small communist party and protested against the war in Vietnam. 'I was a 14-year-old Maoist,' Mr. Sauer said in an interview with The Moscow Times in 2017. After graduating from high school, Mr. Sauer decided not to follow his two brothers to university. Instead, he reported for left-wing publications and campaigned for progressive causes. He briefly helped smuggle weapons for the Irish Republication Army, the paramilitary group that fought for the Irish republican cause in Northern Ireland. Advertisement His antiestablishment activities made him a target of surveillance by Dutch intelligence services for nearly 20 years, Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported in 2023. Mr. Sauer possessed unusually sharp business skills for a professed revolutionary. In the 1980s, he turned the Dutch magazine he was editing, Nieuwe Revu, into a household name with a business strategy that he described as 'sex, news and rock 'n' roll.' That reputation led to a job with the Dutch publishing house VNU, which in 1989 tapped him to start a glossy magazine in the Soviet Union. As the country's leader, Mikhail Gorbachev was relaxing the state's media monopoly under wide-ranging reforms that ended up collapsing the communist state. The initial Russian magazine venture did not flourish. When VNU called him home in the early '90s, Sauer and his business partner, Annemarie van Gaal, decided to stay. They started a new media company, Independent Media. Their big break came a few years later, when Hearst Magazines International gave them the license to publish Cosmopolitan in Russia. It took persistence to convince Hearst, a conservative American media conglomerate, to hand over its flagship title to 'two Dutch people without a headquarters or any experience abroad,' van Gaal said in a phone interview. Cosmopolitan became a major financial success in Russia, enabling van Gaal and Mr. Sauer to acquire local licenses for other publications, including Playboy, Good Housekeeping and Marie Claire. The revenue from these titles helped Mr. Sauer to finance journalism projects in Russia that focused more on public-service reporting. According to his associates, Mr. Sauer strongly believed in developing the skills of local journalists. He hoped to build in Russia an independent and financially successful media industry that would hold power to account, as it did in the Netherlands. Advertisement Mr. Sauer offered his employees business courses in publishing and promoted a Master of Business Administration course, said Elizaveta Osetinskaya, a prominent Russian business journalist who worked with Mr. Sauer at Vedomosti. 'It was this combination of journalism and business that really drew me in,' she said in a phone interview Friday. 'I was thinking, 'One day I will be like Derk.'' In 2014, Mr. Sauer took charge of another Russian business publication, RBC, just as Putin annexed Crimea and steered Russia decisively away from Western-style democracy. Mr. Sauer brought in experienced reporters and editors, including Osetinskaya, and tasked them with turning RBC into a Western-style financial daily. By 2016, the jig was up. Under pressure from the government, the paper's oligarch owner fired an RBC editor. The rest of the editorial team resigned in protest, and Mr. Sauer left soon after. 'Derk tried to sort it out, to protect his team and sail through the storm,' Osetinskaya said. 'But by then the country had changed. There was too much pressure.' After Putin invaded Ukraine, Mr. Sauer became one of the most prominent champions of independent Russian journalists who had fled the country to escape repression. He used his connections and influence in the Netherlands to help Russia's main independent news channel, TV Rain, relocate to Amsterdam in 2023. 'Right now, it's blacker than black,' Mr. Sauer told Dutch television program Buitenhof after the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison last year. 'The rudeness, the cruelty, I just don't know what to do anymore,' he said. 'The repression and the fear are enormous.' Advertisement In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Sauer is survived by two other sons, Tom and Berend, and two granddaughters. This article originally appeared in
Cosmopolitan
16-06-2025
- Cosmopolitan
Sharon Gaffka: "I had an abortion and a miscarriage – and our current laws left me terrified during both"
Little-known fact: abortion is technically a criminal offence in England and Wales, governed by a law from 1861, before women got the right to vote. As powerful anti-choice groups seek to roll back reproductive rights in the UK - as we've seen in the US and Europe - Cosmopolitan has joined forces with BPAS, the UK's leading abortion care service, on a new campaign: End 1861. It hopes to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales. Head here to take action to raise your voice for choice and fight for bodily up, I saw people on the internet call abortion 'the easy way out.' Women were accused of being irresponsible, of not 'taking responsibility' for being clumsy, reckless, or not 'careful enough.' But let me tell you something: two of the hardest moments of my life were a miscarriage and an at-home early medical abortion. Nothing about either was easy. Living through both of these experiences hammered home the reality of our current abortion law and its real-world impact. One was my choice. The other was completely out of my control. But both were painful, lonely, and traumatising. Something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Along with knowing that, in the eyes of the law, I could be treated not as a patient, but as a suspected criminal. My miscarriage was sudden and brutal. I hadn't yet made any decision about the pregnancy, but my body made it for me. I was alone at home, in agony, bleeding and terrified. I called for help because I feared for my life. I didn't want to be on my own. But the idea that someone might suspect I had done something to cause my miscarriage never crossed my mind... until I found out they could. Because under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, women who have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths have found themselves being investigated by police, under suspicion for illegal abortions. Those found guilty can be jailed for life. This included a 15-year-old girl, who suffered an unexplained early still birth. Police were called by hospital staff who believed she had taken a substance bought online to end her pregnancy. She had her phone and laptop seized, with police performing an invasive digital strip search, including reading text messages she had exchanged with her boyfriend expressing worry about her pregnancy. The case was dropped after postmortem tests found the baby had probably been stillborn because of natural causes. During my abortion, I bled so heavily that I passed out and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance [Editor's note: abortion is a safe and common medical procedure, but like any, complications can occur albeit rarely]. Despite taking the pills legally and as prescribed, the bleeding was so severe that I had to have an additional procedure to remove remaining tissue from my uterus. My legs were in stirrups. Exposed. Shaking. Humiliated. I felt guilty. I felt ashamed. And on top of that, I was scared, scared that even though I was well within the legal limit, my experience could still raise questions. I wasn't just vulnerable physically or emotionally. I felt vulnerable to being investigated. The pills I had taken were prescribed to me after a phone consultation. I wasn't anywhere near the 24-week limit. But the pain was so intense, the bleeding so severe, I started to question myself. What if I'd miscalculated the dates? What if someone thought I'd lied? It was terrifying. I couldn't think straight. It might sound paranoid, but this very thing happened. Nicola Packer, who was found not guilty of having an illegal abortion this month, and who was prescribed abortion pills over the phone. She was 26 weeks pregnant but believed, at the time, she was six weeks pregnant. It took five years to clear her name. You might not feel sorry for me. Maybe you think, well, it was 'my choice.' Fine. But think about this. That law that is still in place today, in England, in Wales, it's older than women's right to vote. Older than the NHS. Older than almost every right we've fought to gain. And it's being used more and more frequently. When Roe v Wade happened in the US, it caused people at home to be outraged, and rightly so. But we also thought we were safe. 'That would never happen in the UK,' they said. 'We're more progressive.' But that outrage is built on a false sense of security. The very drugs that saved my life, in different ways, in both of those experiences, are being banned across parts of the US. And here, in the UK, our laws are hanging by a thread. A change in government could change everything. Because our reproductive rights are still built on a 19th century law that treats pregnancy as a crime waiting to happen. When I had my abortion, yes, I had access to medical care. Yes, I had the dignity of being at home. But I also had fear. If the pills had arrived too late. If something had gone wrong. If someone had reported me. I could have been investigated, interrogated, even charged. All while going through something that was already unbearable. And here's what matters: in both of those moments, I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was putting my life first. My wants. My needs. My health. I wasn't committing a crime. I was trying to survive. That's what 'pro-life' should mean. This isn't a distant threat. Between 2012 and 2022, at least 17 women in England and Wales were investigated for ending their pregnancies. In the last three years alone, six have been prosecuted. BPAS has received almost 100 police requests for patients' confidential records — including for teenage girls, survivors of domestic abuse, and women who miscarried unexpectedly at home. This is happening. Right now. Here. In the UK. Abortion is still criminalised under the 1861 Act. The 1967 Abortion Act introduced a legal defence of two doctors who approved the procedure, but it didn't take abortion out of the criminal code. In England and Wales, it's still legally punishable by life imprisonment. That's why I'm backing the End 1861 campaign. This month, MPs have the chance to vote for an amendment that will finally decriminalise abortion. Reports suggest this reform is expected to pass through Parliament this week, but it is not guaranteed until it happens. That's why every single one of us needs to put pressure on our MP. We need them to vote to pass this reform. Not later. Not next year. Now. It won't change how services are delivered. It won't change time limits. It will just recognise that abortion is what it's always been: healthcare. Every day this law remains in place, women remain at risk. The fear. The silence. The shame. The threat of being treated like a criminal just for surviving something horrific. Whether you've had an abortion or a miscarriage, that legal shadow hangs over you. Abortion is common. Miscarriage is even more so. What's not common, and what should never be acceptable, is a law that punishes women for surviving the hardest, most vulnerable moments of their lives. This campaign matters. I stand behind it. Because no one should grieve a pregnancy loss with a police officer watching. Because no one should be scared to go to hospital. Because no one should ever be punished for putting their life first. It's time to trust women. It's time to decriminalise pregnancy. It's time to drag this law out of the 19th century and into the reality we live in. Join the campaign to End 1861 and email your MP using this template, urging them to vote in favour of the NC1 amendment to the Crime and Policing bill this week
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Yahoo
Abortion clinic staff feel 'abandoned', says charity
Staff at an abortion clinic feel "abandoned" by police because no-one has been prosecuted following more than 40 reports of alleged criminal damage to their vehicles, a charity has said. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) runs the clinic in Ophir Road, Bournemouth, which anti-abortion protesters had stationed themselves outside of before a council order was implemented in 2022. The clinic was brought to international attention when US Vice President JD Vance raised concerns over the prosecution of a man who breached a protection zone around it. A Dorset Police spokesperson said the force has met with BPAS staff regularly and that it was "actively pursuing" lines of enquiry. Rachael Clarke, BPAS's head of advocacy, said the lack of police action against people who allegedly left nails and screws on roads to be driven over was "incredibly upsetting". "We have been reporting this to the police. We work with the council. There's now CCTV up outside the clinic but still nobody has been identified, nobody has been caught," she said. "It often feels to our staff, who often are nurses and midwifes, who are going into help women access essential legal medical care, that they have been abandoned by local police and that's incredibly upsetting," Ms Clarke added. Before the council order was introduced, she said one protester would leave baby clothes in a bush close to the clinic "to try to make women feel guilty". Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council introduced the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) for an area around the clinic in October 2022 in an effort to stop anti-social behaviour. In April, Livia Tossici-Bolt, from Bournemouth, was ordered to pay £20,000 for breaching the PSPO twice in March 2023. Vance voiced concern about the prosecution of Adam Smith-Connor, who was told to pay £9,000 after he prayed outside the clinic. He said it represented the UK's "backslide away from conscience rights" at the Munich Security Council in February. The government introduced buffer zones around abortion clinics in England and Wales in October, which prevent protesters gathering in a 492ft (150m) radius around them. A Dorset Police spokesperson said the force's neighbourhood policing team has worked "extensively" with BPAS staff "to tackle the issues they face when going to work". The said: "We have seen a reduction in the number of criminal damage offences reported to us this year and have met with clinic management to ensure we are being made aware of all incidents that have taken place. "Subsequently we have not seen any additional reports. "The crime series remains under investigation and we actively pursue any potential lines of enquiry, however, no arrests have been made to date." You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. JD Vance attacks Europe over free speech and migration Praying man breached abortion clinic safe zone Buffer zones set to come in around abortion clinics Abortion clinic protesters lose prayer case
