The General Medical Council has lifted the restrictions it had placed on a doctor providing abortion reversal treatment, ahead of a challenge to the ban by the Christian Legal Centre.
Caseworkers found that Dr Dermot Kearney, who was blocked from providing abortion pill reversal treatment in May last year, had no case to answer and that the treatment is safe.
Dr Kearney had been administering the hormone progesterone to women who wished to reverse the effect of the first pill for an early medical abortion. Fifty-five per cent of women who took the medication gave birth to healthy babies, more than double the rate for those who stopped the process but did not take progesterone.
The treatment was banned following claims that it was dangerous, but regulators have since found that these were based on “hearsay”.
Expert witnesses said that the small evidence of a risk of haemorrhage after the treatment was likely to be related to the generic risks of an early medical abortion rather than specific to the administration of the hormone.
Regulators also reported that witness statements from Dr Kearney’s patients consistently showed that he kept them “well informed about the treatment, was not judgmental, did not attempt to push his own views on them, and was overall considered to have been highly supportive”.
Dr Kearney, a former president of the Catholic Medical Association, said he was “relieved and delighted” by the exoneration and alleged that he had been “the victim of a coordinated campaign by senior figures in the abortion industry”.
“At all times my concern and priority has been the women who have been referred to me for urgent medical support. I am humbled by the support they have shown for me in return.”
The Christian Legal Centre, which had been preparing to challenge the General Medical Council at a High Court hearing, said it was pleased the ban had been lifted but was concerned that it had been imposed in the first place.
The chief executive, Andrea Williams, said: “The mantra of the abortion lobby of ‘my body my choice’ should extend to a woman changing her mind about going through with an abortion.”
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