Court battle over morning-after pill

A pro-life group in Britain today won the go-ahead for a High Court action aimed at stopping over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill to women over 16 without a doctor’s prescription.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) will now dispute the legality of the British Government's reclassification of the Levonelle-2 pill at a full hearing before the end of July.

The drug, which SPUC says delivers 50 times the dosage of the daily mini-pill contraceptive, was made available from pharmacists from January.

Before that date it could only be obtained on a doctor’s prescription.

The society’s counsel, Richard Gordon QC, told Mr Justice Scott Baker that the move was unlawful because it permitted the commission of a criminal offence - the administration or supply of poisons or instruments with the intent to procure miscarriage.

Mr Gordon said that there was a strongly arguable case which raised very serious medical and legal issues.

‘‘It is the wider availability and the concomitant social effects which has caused SPUC to be concerned.’’

Granting permission, the judge said that he was persuaded that there was an issue that required to be resolved.

It was better that it was decided in the civil courts than by way of private prosecutions brought in respect of specific supplies of the drug.

‘‘There is an arguable case on what is fundamentally a very important question.’’