‘Any Poison or Other Noxious Thing’ : Testing And Evidence In Criminal Investigations Of Self-Managed Abortions In Great Britain

Overview

Feminist legal and socio-legal scholarship has long demonstrated that law and its institutions are not neutral, but are shaped by gendered norms and moral assumptions about reproduction, sexuality, and care [1-3].

In contemporary Great Britain, these dynamics are increasingly evident in the governance of abortion. Since Nov 2022, over a 100 people have been investigated for unlawfully administering “any poison or other noxious thing” – i.e., taking abortion pills outside permitted use (e.g., without two doctors’ signatures). Police investigations have involved “digital strip searches” of suspects’ devices, and testing people for abortion drugs. Abortion providers and activists argue these investigations are not in the public interest and risk deterring care-seekers [8-10]

This project examines how such practices operate not just as mechanisms of enforcement, but as forms of moral regulation and governance. It interrogates how abortion becomes an object of suspicion, investigation, and judgement, and how institutions—including courts, police, and regulatory actors—actively interpret and assign meaning to reproductive decision-making and actions. 

In this project, courtrooms, trials, and associated testing and evidentiary practices are not treated as neutral mechanisms for revealing “facts” about abortion, but as sites that actively produce what counts as evidence, deviance, and truth [4-6]. Drawing on feminist STS and sociology, I aim to analyse forensic science, digital evidence, and expert knowledge as socially and institutionally situated, demonstrating how legal and investigative processes themselves function as sites of knowledge production [7]. In doing so, I aim to shift attention from abortion governance as a matter of formal law or policy to the everyday institutional practices through which reproductive life is interpreted, evaluated, and governed.

The project is guided by two interlinked questions: 

(i) How does abortion pill “testing” reproduce and stabilise particular discourses of abortion, risk, and responsibility? 

(ii) How are notions of “evidence” and “proof” constructed through legal, technological, and institutional practices? 

Working across feminist sociology, criminology, socio-legal studies, and STS, this research extends my wider programme on abortion, reproductive governance, and moral regulation, bringing these into dialogue with emerging questions of criminalisation and carcerality in Great Britain.

Planned Outputs

This exploratory empirical study will generate a series of interconnected outputs. These include manuscripts grappling with methodological, conceptual, and empirical elements, which together advance analyses of abortion governance, evidence, and moral regulation. 

Alongside academic outputs, the project will engage with relevant organisations and networks to co-produce and disseminate public-facing materials. 

The findings from this pilot will also inform the development of a larger programme of research, forming the basis for applications for major external funding.

Links to Previous Work

This project extends my earlier work on self-managed abortion and the theorisation of safety and risk, bringing these into dialogue with questions of carcerality, criminology, and feminist STS. 

It builds in particular on my conceptualisations of abortion as organised through a “cacophony of laws”, as a transgressive practice, and as shaped by contested understandings of risk, safety, and care. It also develops my more recent work on abortion exceptionalism and regulation, which examines how legal and policy frameworks govern abortion through mechanisms of interpretation, proportionality, and control.

Funding

Initially funded by the KCL Social Science and Public Policy Faculty Research and Impact Fund (2025), this pilot study functions as a proof of concept for a larger programme of research on abortion, governance, and criminalisation in Great Britain.

It will develop into a series of outputs, and forms the basis of ongoing applications for major external funding.

References

  1. Berro Pizzarossa, L. (2019). 'Women Are Not in the Best Position to Make These Decisions by Themselves': Gender Stereotypes in the Uruguayan Abortion Law. U. Oxford Hum. Rts. Hub J., 25.

  2. Baxi, P. (2013). Public secrets of law: Rape trials in India. Oxford University Press.

  3. Smith, O., & Skinner, T. (2012). Observing court responses to victims of rape and sexual assault. Feminist Criminology, 7(4), 298-326.

  4. Ahmed, Aziza. (2015). Medical evidence and expertise in abortion jurisprudence. American Journal of Law & Medicine, 41(1), 85-118.

  5. Bechky, B. (2020) Blood, powder, and residue : how crime labs translate  evidence into proof. Cloth. [Online]. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  6. Kruse, C. (2015). The social life of forensic evidence. University of California Press.

  7. Jasanoff, S. (1996). Is science socially constructed—And can it still inform public policy?. Science and Engineering Ethics, 2, 263-276.

  8. Davis, P. (2023). British police testing women for abortion drugs. Tortoise Media

  9. Lord, J., & Regan, L. (2024). Triumphs and trials with the UK abortion law: The power of collaboration in abortion reform. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 164, 5-11.

  10. Sherwood, H. (2024). Police have demanded records from UK abortion provider 32 times since 2020. The Guardian.