The following is a non-exhaustive list of some of the scandals that have occurred at the UK’s two largest abortion providers, MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and BPAS (British Pregnancy Advisory Service).
- A damning report from the UK’s Care Quality Commission (CQC) accused Marie Stopes International (now MSI Reproductive Choices) of paying staff bonuses for persuading women to have abortions. At all 70 Marie Stopes clinics, inspectors from the Care Quality Commission found evidence of a policy that saw staff utilise a high-pressure sales tactic, calling women who had decided against having an abortion to offer them another appointment.
- Another report showed that nearly 400 botched abortions were carried out in two months at Marie Stopes clinics. The report also outlined that, in another three-month period, 11 women needed emergency transfers to hospital after difficulties at facilities run by the abortion provider.
- In 2016, Marie Stopes International was forced to suspend abortion services for a month after an unannounced inspection by the CQC found 2,600 safety flaws at Marie Stopes International abortion clinics in the UK. These included doctors going home and leaving women under sedation to be supervised by nurses and healthcare assistants, fetuses being put in waste bins rather than cremated and staff trying to give a vulnerable, visibly distressed woman an abortion without her consent.
- The CQC has uncovered a number of serious failings at BPAS abortion clinics.
- In 2020, it was discovered that an abortion clinic in London, which specialises in late-term abortions, could be putting women at risk after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found incompetent staff who had not completed life support training and “not all equipment was in good working order”.
- In 2019, the CQC was contacted by a local NHS trust who “raised concerns regarding the frequency of patients coming to them from BPAS Merseyside”.
- Another BPAS abortion clinic in Birmingham has been found to be storing foetal remains in a utility room. According to the CQC report, the remains of dead babies were left in an unlocked utility room rather than in a freezer, where they should have been stored. The BBC reported that the remains of the dead babies were left for up to two weeks “at room temperature”.
- Inspectors found six cases of women who “required urgent medical attention due to complications and were transferred from the service to another healthcare provider between January and December 2018”.
- In 2018, a surgeon contracted by the Merseyside clinic was struck off the medical register for exposing patients to the risk of life-threatening conditions during abortions.
- In 2017, the CQC found 16 serious incidents had occurred in which patients were admitted to hospital for emergency treatment over a period of three years. Over the same period, 11 women were transferred for emergency hospital treatment after suffering serious injuries.