Pro life campaigners have lost a legal bid to stop a Scottish Government plan to allow women to carry out abortions in their own home.

Members of SPUC Pro Life Scotland instructed lawyers to fight a proposal which would authorise medical staff to give women seeking terminations a drug called Misoprostol.

The initiative states that individuals given the substance would be allowed to take the pill in their homes and end their pregnancies.

However, at the Court of Session in Edinburgh earlier this year, lawyers acting for the organisation stated the scheme was unlawful and contravened the 1967 Abortion Act - the legislation which regulates the medical procedure.

The organisation’s legal team argued that allowing the procedure to take place in a woman’s home was unlawful.

Advocate Morag Ross QC argued that the effect of existing legislation meant that medical facilities were the only place where the procedure could be carried out lawfully.

Ms Ross argued that allowing the termination to be carried out in a woman’s home was not supported by existing law.

However, in a written judgement issued yesterdayon Wednesday, judge Lady Wise rejected SPUC’s case and ruled in favour of the Scottish Government’s proposals.

The judge also stated that the government’s proposals would not be unlawful.

She wrote: “The theme running through the petitioner’s various propositions is that the home where a woman is ordinarily resident and where she wants to take the second part of the treatment is too broad and unrestricted to be properly approved as a class of place.

“If the medical petitioner is to have ongoing responsibility for the woman’s treatment while she is at home, as he or she must, there is at least a rational basis for identifying the place or ordinary residence as a clearly defined restriction.

“It seems to me that there is little doubt that the restriction of the class of place to a woman’s ordinary residence represents a real and substantive restriction on location.”

SPUC went to the Court of Session in light of a plan which gained approval in October 2017.

Under the proposals, women seeking help from abortion clinics will be given Misoprostol which they will be able to take in their own home to induce a termination.

They will be able to take the drug after they have taken another drug called Mifepristone. At proceedings earlier this year, the Chief Executive of SPUC (Scotland), John Deighan, said the organisation believed the initiative was wrong.

He added: “We have looked to the 1967 Abortion Act and it doesn’t give the powers that allow women to take the pill at home.”

During the May 2018 court hearing, lawyers for SPUC also argued that allowing the procedure to be carried out in a woman’s home may put the patient’s health at risk. They argued that because a medical professional wouldn’t be present, a woman could become unwell and not have access to help or treatment.

However, Lady Wise concluded that the Scottish Government’s plans would not undermine the safety of women who had chosen to undergo the procedure at home. She wrote: “As a generality, it seems to me that patients who self administer medication at home may still be described as being treated by their medical practitioner who remains in charge of that treatment.”

“To take but one example, insulin dependent diabetics may require to self administer the insulin prescribed to them regularly at home, but they do so under the direction of their doctor and would ordinarily be described as receiving treatment for that doctor regardless of a lack of physical presence by the practitioner in the same building or even in the locality.

“Similarly, with pharmaceutical termination, regardless of place, there is no need for a doctor to hand the medication to the woman personally.

“The doctor’s role is to assess the suitability of the woman for treatment, to consider any clinical contra indications for the particular woman and then, if appropriate, to prescribe Mifepristone and Misoprostol.

“Where the woman is handed both the Mifepristone and the Misoprostol for self administration at the clinic, no issue arises because the petitioner would accept that the doctor continues to be in charge or in control of the treatment.

“While there is a window of 24 hours between the Mifepristone administered at the clinic and the Misoprostol taken at home, it cannot be assumed that the medical practitioner will be less available at times when the woman chooses to take the Misoprostol at home than he or she would be if it was administered in a clinical setting.”

Lady Wise then dismissed the action brought by SPUC.

She wrote: “I have concluded that the decision of the respondents to approve a woman’s home as a place where one stage of the termination of pregnancy can be carried out is not unlawful on either of the grounds contended for by the petitioner.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We are pleased that the court has confirmed our approach is lawful. This will allow NHS boards to continue to offer patients the option of taking the second abortion drug, misoprostol, at home if this is their preference and where it is clinically appropriate for the patient.

“The experience so far from those boards in Scotland who are offering this option suggests that a significant majority of those women who are eligible prefer to take misoprostol in the comfort and privacy of their own home.”