The Queen (On the Application of Smeaton) v. Secretary of State for Health
Creator
Unknown authorBibliographic Citation
Family Law Reports 2002; 2002(2): 146-251.
Abstract
Court Decision; [2002] 2 Family Law Reports 146; 2002 May 10 (date of decision). The Queen's Bench Division held that a criminal statute proscribing the supply, administration, or use of any substance to procure a miscarriage did not prohibit the sale of emergency contraception ("morning after pill"). A privately funded lobbying organization brought suit to enjoin pharmacists from selling emergency contraception to women over the age of sixteen without a prescription. The organization argued that emergency contraception prevents implantation after fertilization, and that Parliament had intended to prevent interference with implantation by criminalizing miscarriage. Miscarriage is to be interpreted using modern parlance; under the contemporary understanding miscarriage refers only to the disruption of pregnancies after implantation. Furthermore, pre-implantation methods of contraception have been available to, and used by, the general public for decades. Therefore, emergency contraception which merely prevents implantation or fertilization is not prohibited as supplying, administering, or using a substance to procure a miscarriage. [KIE/ECL]
Permanent Link
http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1010485Date
2002-05-10Subject
Publisher
Great Britain. England and Wales. Supreme Court of Judicature, Queen's Bench Division
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