A paramedic who tricked a woman into having an abortion by secretly inserting abortion drugs into her during sex has been sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison.
Stephen Doohan, 33, from Edinburgh, was married when he met the woman during a holiday in Spain in 2021. The two began a long-distance relationship. In March 2023, the woman travelled to Edinburgh to meet Doohan after discovering she was pregnant. The High Court in Glasgow heard that in May 2023, an investigation began after the woman raised concerns with the Scottish Ambulance Service about what she believed Doohan had done.
When sentencing Doohan, who was a clinical team leader with the Ambulance Service, Lord Colbeck told the court on Monday: “You put her through considerable pain over a number of days, and left her facing a lifetime of pain and loss.” He added that Doohan had inflicted “long-term psychological injury” on the woman.
The case has drawn renewed attention to the issue of coerced abortion and the secret administration of abortion-inducing drugs, something abortion campaigners are not interested in addressing. The case also highlights the dangers of telemedicine ‘at home’ abortion and the government backed system here of allowing ‘pills by post’ to continue. For our part, we need to keep highlighting these issues.
According to a 2022 Savanta ComRes poll commissioned by BBC Radio 4, 15% of UK women aged 18-44 said they had felt pressure to undergo an abortion they did not want.