Latest news with #JoeliBrearley
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
After 'Shocking' Police Abortion Guidance, Here's What Campaigners Want To Happen Next
Following the release of new police guidance detailing how to seize phones and search for medications used to terminate pregnancies in the homes of women after unexpected pregnancy loss, campaigners and doctors are urgently calling for abortion to be decriminalised. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has branded the guidance on child death investigation, which comes from the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) and was updated earlier this year, as 'truly shocking'. If someone is suspected of terminating a pregnancy outside of the legally permitted circumstances, the guidance suggests police could seize phones to examine internet search history, messages and health apps such as menstrual cycle and fertility trackers to 'establish a woman's knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy'. It also offers advice on searching for abortifacients (medications used to terminate pregnancies) as well as packaging, documentation and empty medication blister packs. Now, campaigners and doctors are calling for abortion to be decriminalised, with Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, urging people to write to their MPs to ask them to support it. Labour and Co-op MP Stella Creasy has also urged her followers to take action. The NPCC told HuffPost UK: 'Unexpected pregnancy loss is not something which is routinely investigated by police as potential illegal abortion, and these are very rare. 'We recognise how traumatic the experience of losing a child is, with many complexities involved, and any investigation of this nature will always be treated with the utmost sensitivity and compassion.' The council added an investigation would only be initiated 'where there is credible information to suggest criminal activity' and this would often be as a result of concerns raised from medical professionals. 'It is important to stress that due to the individuality of each case, there is no standardised policy to investigate illegal abortions and that police will always work closely with health partners, prioritising the welfare of everyone involved,' said the NPCC. But against a backdrop of reproductive rights being rolled back in the US, campaigners are concerned by the update to police guidance. Over the past two years, six women have appeared in UK courts charged with ending their own pregnancy. Since the introduction of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (written before women could vote in the UK), only three other convictions of illegal abortion have been reported, the BMJ said. 'Abortion providers have reported that in recent years they have received c.50requests for women's medical records from the police in relation to suspected abortion offence,' a cross-party amendment briefing on the topic said. Abortion is technically still a criminal offence in England and Wales. It is only 'de facto' legal until 24 weeks because of the Abortion Act 1967, which allows people to circumvent the law by meeting certain conditions (getting the sign-off from two doctors, taking place in a hospital or premises approved by the Secretary of State for Health, and meeting one of the seven criteria that allows abortion). According to the briefing, that means that technically 'any woman who undergoes an abortion without the permission of two doctors – for example by ordering pills online – can be prosecuted and receive a life sentence as her abortion takes place outside of the provisions of the Act'. This is not usually enforced, but the law seems to be getting stricter. Nicola Packer was only cleared of illegally terminating a pregnancy after taking abortion pills during Covid this month, for instance. She had used a registered provider and was covered by emergency lockdown rule changes that allowed people to order abortion pills online up to 10 weeks into their pregnancy (this stayed in place after the lockdown). Earlier this month, The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 'welcomed' an amendment which is currently making its way through parliament and calls for abortion to be decriminalised. At the time, Dr Ranee Thakar, president of RCOG, said: 'Abortion that happens outside of the current law generally involves very vulnerable women – including those facing domestic abuse, mental health challenges or barriers to accessing NHS care. 'Yet alarmingly, prosecutions of women have been increasing in recent years.' Stating that abortion is a form of healthcare, Dr Thakar added: 'Parliamentarians now have an unmissable opportunity to decriminalise abortion, to ensure women can access abortion safely, confidentially and free from the threat of investigation and prosecution. 'We urge MPs to support this amendment to ensure that women and girls in England and Wales will have the same protections as their counterparts in countries such as Northern Ireland, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.' The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) has also been campaigning for abortion law reform. Spokesperson Katie Saxon said the recent police guidance change 'is the clearest sign yet that women cannot rely on the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, or the courts to protect them'. She added: 'The only way to stop this is to remove women from the criminal law on abortion.' Joeli Brearley, campaigner and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, has now urged people to write to their MPs to ask them to support the amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. 'This is not the time for caution,' she wrote on social media. 'We need to go hard or go home. Let's make sure the future of reproductive rights in this country is secure and that no woman who experiences pregnancy loss is ever investigated as a potential criminal.' On Sunday, Stella Creasy took to Instagram to 'beg' her followers to not 'ignore the warning signs that abortion access is under threat on our shores'. 'For the sake of the 250,000 women who have one every year here ask your MP to sign our cross party amendment and vote for it,' she said. 'We only have a few weeks to win this vital fight for our freedoms ... The stakes could not be higher but with your help and all our voices we can do this.' Abortion Law Could Radically Change As MPs Propose Decriminalising Abortion Up To 24 Weeks Lesbians Have Always Stood With Trans Women – Our Safe Spaces Should Too Former Minister Calls Out 'Sexist' No.10 Briefings Against Women In Starmer's Cabinet
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
This 1 Factor Might Be Behind 74,000 Women Losing Their Jobs Each Year
Two weeks after giving birth, Kate discovered she was being made redundant – it was a huge blow to her during what was already an emotionally vulnerable time. 'I had sorted out all my KIT [keeping in touch] days and when I'd be returning etc., and it was so out of the blue,' said the 32-year-old. Kate had been invited to join a Zoom call whilst still in hospital but didn't get the message until she was home. When she viewed it back, she said it was 'the CEO reading from a script telling me they were liquidising the company in the UK'. The mum claimed that a month later, the company was advertising for the same role with the same job description. Sadly her situation isn't unique. New research from charity Pregnant Then Screwed, in partnership with Women In Data, has revealed a rise in the number of women who are potentially pushed out of their jobs when they're pregnant, or on or back from maternity leave. Up to 74,000 women now lose their job for getting pregnant or taking maternity leave each year, according to the new report. In 2016, it was 54,000 – so an increase of 37%. Pregnant Then Screwed surveyed 35,800 parents and Women In Data extracted a nationally representative sample of 5,870 parents for its State of the Nation report. The report found that 12.3% of women are sacked, constructively dismissed or made redundant whilst pregnant, on maternity leave or within a year of returning from maternity leave. If scaled up to the general population, this could mean as many as 74,000 women a year are forced to leave their job. "To find that 74,000 mothers a year are being pushed out of their job for daring to procreate is not surprising, but it is devastating."Joeli Brearley Joeli Brearley, founder of charity and campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed, said: 'We have long suspected things are getting worse, not better. Our free advice line is ringing off the hook, it has reached a point where we simply cannot cope with demand. 'To find that 74,000 mothers a year are being pushed out of their job for daring to procreate is not surprising, but it is devastating. 'That's a woman being pushed out of her job every seven minutes in the UK for doing something that is part of the human existence.' The new report also found that almost half (49.5%) of pregnant women, those on maternity leave, and those returning from maternity leave said they've had a negative experience at work. Of those who had a negative experience, one in five (20.6%) left their employer. A third (35.9%) of women say they were sidelined or demoted whilst pregnant, on maternity leave, or when they returned from maternity leave. Yet just 2% of women who experience discrimination raise a tribunal claim. Under redundancy laws in the UK, pregnant employees, as well as those on maternity leave, adoption leave or shared parental leave must be offered a suitable alternative vacancy, if there is one. A new law came into force in April 2024 to extend redundancy protections to 18 months after a child is born. In a bid to raise awareness of the number of women potentially forced out of work during pregnancy and the first year after birth, Pregnant Then Screwed will be live-streaming a giant physical shredder which will be shredding the CVs of mothers and aired across a billboard in Westfield. The Juggle Is Real: What It's Like To Be A Working Mum I Couldn't Stop Yelling At My Kids. Then I Uncovered Something Surprising Was Causing It THIS Is The Eye-Watering Number Of UK Parents Going Into Debt Over Child Care Costs
The Independent
27-02-2025
- General
- The Independent
Increase in pregnant women losing their job, study suggests
Up to 74,000 women lose their job every year for getting pregnant or taking maternity leave, new research suggests. The figure has increased from 54,000 a decade ago, according to campaign groups Pregnant Then Screwed and Women In Data. Their survey of 35,800 parents found that 12% of women are sacked, constructively dismissed or made redundant whilst pregnant, on maternity leave or within a year of returning from maternity leave. The report estimated that this could mean as many as 74,000 women are forced to leave their job every year. Half of pregnant women, those on maternity leave, and those returning from maternity leave said they had a negative experience at work, leading one in five to quit their job, according to the research. A third of women said they were sidelined or demoted whilst pregnant, on maternity leave, or when they return from maternity leave, but only 2% of women who experience discrimination took a claim to a tribunal, said the report. Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, said: 'We have long suspected things are getting worse, not better. Our free advice line is ringing off the hook, it has reached a point where we simply cannot cope with demand. 'To find that 74,000 mothers a year are being pushed out of their job for daring to procreate is not surprising, but it is devastating. 'In 2016, the coalition government commissioned a report to better understand how widespread pregnancy and maternity discrimination is. 'The report found that things had significantly deteriorated over the previous 10 years. Despite committing to repeat the research every five years, this has not happened. 'What sort of message does this send to women.' Taisiya Merkulova of Women In Data said: 'Collectively, we need to close the gender gap and remove the challenges women face to achieve equality of opportunities in the workplace and reduce burden of the unspoken 'tax' on mothers from additional unpaid labour as carers and in the home.' The campaign groups urged companies to increase their paternity leave offer, create family friendly workplaces, including advertising jobs as flexible and collect maternity retention data. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: 'This is just plain wrong. No one should be losing their job as a result of getting pregnant. 'This is why the measures in the Employment Rights Bill, such as giving pregnant women and new mothers a period where they are protected from being dismissed, are so important. 'They will give greater protections to pregnant women and new mothers.' Government spokesman said: 'The law is clear, no-one should face discrimination at work because they are pregnant or are taking maternity leave. 'Despite this, we know that discrimination still occurs far too often. 'This is why our Employment Rights Bill, and subsequent regulations, will make it unlawful to dismiss pregnant women, mothers on maternity leave or in the six months after they return to work – employers who break the law could face a costly discrimination claim.'
Sky News
25-02-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Britain's shrinking families: An economic 'timebomb'
Why you can trust Sky News Higher taxes, smaller pensions, weaker public services, an older retirement age and more potholes - it sounds like the manifesto of a party without a chance of making it to office. But as Britons have fewer and fewer children, these are economic policies they're unwittingly voting for, according to experts. "If we're not procreating, then there's nobody to pay taxes, so it's a ticking timebomb," Joeli Brearley, founder of mums' advocacy group Pregnant Then Screwed, told the Money blog. The latest figures show the average number of children born to a woman in England and Wales over her lifetime dropped to 1.44 in 2023, the lowest level since records began in 1938, according to the Office for National Statistics. This measurement is known as the fertility rate. To put it in perspective, a rate of 2.1 is needed to sustain the population level without immigration. There appear to be two trends driving the decline: a growing minority of young people who don't want children and an economy punishing the majority who do. Here we investigate the causes and consequences of Britain's shrinking families. British fertility peaked at 2.93 in 1964 and has declined ever since. Now we're feeling the effects, said Matthias Doepke, professor of economics at LSE. The proportion of Britons who work and pay taxes is shrinking while the proportion of retired people taking out of the public purse is growing, putting a strain on public finances, he said. "Expenses for pensions are rising, expenses for healthcare are rising," he said, adding it was no coincidence that after decades of declining fertility, taxation is at an all-time high. Less and less money is available for other public services, like fixing potholes, reducing NHS waiting lists or building infrastructure, he said. Younger people are losing more and more power over how the government spends their taxes, added Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the economics thinktank UK Women's Budget Group (WBG). "You get this sort of perverse incentive, which is that there's a lot more older people so they're a much more important voting block, but they're not earning money, they're not paying taxes." But even with more political weight, retirees face less generous state pensions if there simply aren't enough workers to pay for it. And it is "almost inevitable" that the retirement age will rise to slow the rate at which the public purse shrinks, Doeke said. Simply put: today's workers can expect to work longer and receive a smaller pension than their parents. 'The world is f***ed' To hear the experts describe it, the stakes are exceedingly high. Yet a growing number of young people do not want children. Approximately 15% of Gen Z adults aged 18-25 say they definitely will not have them, according to the Centre for Population Change. This is up from 5 -10% of millennials surveyed at the same age between 2005 and 2007. "People are realising it's not the only way you can feel accomplished in life," said Adwoa Amankwah, 23, a midwifery assistant from Manchester who has never felt a desire to have children of her own. "Especially women nowadays - I have a lot of friends around me who don't feel the need to have kids." Ms Amankwah said the cost of raising children and the challenge of finding a partner who would make a good role model has made it less likely she will change her mind. "Looking after yourself in this economy is so difficult. I've got two cats and I cannot imagine looking after another human being. It's just insane." Each generation of Britons has gained more freedom over whether or not to have children, said Ruby Warrington, author of Women Without Kids. Baby boomers, born 1946-64, broke free of the idea they were duty-bound to marry young and have a family, she said. Gen Xers like herself, born 1965-79, grew up with the message "you can do what you want with your life" and the means to act on it, like effective contraception and legal abortion. "The message that Generation Z are growing up with is 'the world is f****ed'," Warrington said. "I think it's overlooked, but from a very young age [they] have absorbed messages from the culture that the climate is on fire." She continued: "I think these sorts of messages are really impacting procreative choices and decisions in people 25 and under." 'Childcare crisis' Still, the vast majority of people want children. The problem is economic headwinds have compelled many to abandon plans to start a family or have more than one child, said Stephenson, of the Women's Budget Group. Chief among them is the cost of childcare. The average price of a part-time nursery place for a child under two years old was £7,596 a year in March 2024, according to a Coram survey, rising to £14,501 for a full-time place. To buy a year of childcare for three children - the size of the average family when Britain recorded its highest fertility rate in 1964 - parents faced a £43,503 bill. That's 16% more than the average worker's entire pre-tax salary, £37,430. "So it's not surprising that people are having fewer children," said Ms Stephenson. Emily Steele, 27, from Birmingham, always planned to have three children, even buying a three-bed home in anticipation. She and her partner Brian met with fertility complications, but that didn't stop them - what dashed their plans was the £13,000 annual cost of sending their first and only child, Penny, to nursery. The couple, who used IVF, froze two extra embryos to give Penny siblings. Now they face a choice between destroying them or putting the family in a "very unfeasible" financial position. "I feel like they're my children," she said. "It's very much a torn decision: Do we get rid of them completely and never have the chance? "Or do we make it difficult for ourselves financially and have another baby, but we would be living pay cheque to pay cheque and worrying?" It's the type of choice faced by thousands of women. In a Pregnant Then Screwed (PTS) survey of 5,900 women who had abortions, 52% said the cost of childcare was the primary reason. The latest government statistics show the number of abortions in England and Wales was 251,377 in 2022, a 17% increase on 2021. "For women who feel forced to have an abortion because the figures don't add up, the result is devastating and really traumatic," PTS's Brearley said. "I've spoken to women who are hysterical in tears, who are really traumatised by what they're having to go through to survive." "That's very new, actually," she added. "It feels that the childcare crisis is really biting and that's the impact." Since September, the government has offered 15 hours free childcare a week to parents of children aged nine months to four years. This will increase to 30 hours next September. There is not yet any data available on the impact. Steele, whose daughter is two, saw her bill fall to £7,000 a year, but she said it's still too much to afford more children. Parental leave, debt and matriarchy Limited maternity and paternity rights mean parents are struggling before they even need childcare, according to Brearley. A study by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research (INLPR) in 2021 found the UK had the least generous parental leave in Europe. Fathers are legally entitled to two weeks' paid leave at a rate of £184 a week (half the national living wage) or 90% of their salary, whichever is lower. Mothers are entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave: 39 weeks paid at the same rate as men and 13 weeks unpaid. "The lion's share of families are digging into savings or credit cards or borrowing money in order to get through those first few months," said Brearley. A PTS survey found 76% of mothers relied on debt or withdrew money from their savings due to low maternity pay. After the INLPR study, co-editor and UCL professor of early childhood provision Peter Moss wrote that British policy was "implicitly matriarchal, eschewing gender equality for the idea that women should be the main carers of young children". Brearley said: "I think they're just not willing to do that like we were: women are more savvy, more ambitious, are thinking 'I want to progress further in my career before I take a hit'. "Then, of course, your fertility can drop off a cliff and it becomes too late to have children." No room for a family Parental leave is not the only factor incentivising women to have children later in life, according to Stephenson. "One of the biggest things is earnings aren't keeping up with the cost of housing." The average one-bedroom home in England costs 47% of women's median earnings, up from 36% last year, according to WBG's analysis in October. Anything over 30% is considered unaffordable by the Office for National Statistics. This has pushed back the age at which it makes most economic sense for a woman to have children into her late 30s, years after peak fertility, said Stephenson. Austerity Analysis carried out by the Centre for Progressive Policy thinktank found austerity has been a "primary driver" behind falling fertility rates since 2010. From the year the Conservatives came to power until 2022, the fertility rate fell faster than any other G7 country. The thinktank surveyed local authorities and found areas of higher deprivation experienced a 10% faster decline than affluent areas. "That actually bucks a trend," said chief executive Ben Franklin, explaining that higher wealth and education typically correlated with lower fertility rates in the past. He said the cost of having children was "made significantly higher as a result of cuts to social expenditure, social security, welfare [and] to things like Sure Start programmes". Sure Start refers to parenting support hubs introduced by Labour in 1999. Their budgets were slashed by two-thirds between 2010 and 2021, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Depopulation If the fertility rate continues its downward trajectory, the UK faces population decline, warned Doepke. Workers would gravitate to cities, leaving some villages and towns without services like they have done in Japan, where the fertility rate is approximately 1.26. "In Tokyo, things are as crowded and busy as ever, but the Japanese countryside is emptying out," he said. "It means that property values there are collapsing - nobody wants to buy a house in a village that's disappearing." Neighbouring South Korea has the worst fertility rate in the world, 0.72 in 2023, and is approximately two decades ahead of the UK on its current trajectory. Professor Sojung Lim, director of the Yun Kim Population Research Laboratory, said the UK shares the problems that precipitated South Korea's record low fertility: deteriorating economic conditions, rocketing house prices, inflexible workplace culture, long working hours and policies against working from home, to name a few. Both nations' economies, and other heavily deregulated capitalist economies across the world, have made life more "flexible" for employers by making it more precarious and unstable for employees, she said. "People have a hard time predicting and planning their life. That is one of the fundamental issues that our world is dealing with." The global fertility rate more than halved from 5.0 to 2.2 between 1950 and 2021, with more than half of countries below the population replacement level, according to a study published in the Lancet in May. The research, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, predicts the number of countries in the entire world with a sustainable fertility rate will plummet to just six by 2100. "The rate and magnitude of changes in terms of fertility decline might be too fast and too big for an individual society to deal with, so I hope we're going to have some sort of consensus," Lim said. "We need a collective effort. If you miss good timing, it might be really hard to reverse the trend."
