There is insufficient evidence about the physical or mental harm caused by abortion to make a clinical case on whether abortion law should be reformed, a health service paper concludes.

In the House of Keys last week, Health Minister Kate Beecroft voted against giving Dr Alex Allinson leave to introduce a private member’s bill on abortion law reform.

She told MHKs that there was no medical evidence to support either side of the debate. ’It does not come down clearly either way,’ she said, adding that left societal attitudes and expectations as the basis for possible change. ’We do not have that evidence,’ she said.

Now the Department of Health and Social Care has published the paper on which she based her comments.

The DHSC produced the paper this month on the feasibility of amending the 1995 Abortion Act.

It concludes: ’There is inadequate evidence of physical (including reproductive) or mental harms resulting from termination compared to continuance of an unwanted pregnancy to make clinical evidence the major driver of legislation.’

However, the paper notes that a systematic review by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges concluded that rates of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth.

And a literature review did not find evidence of any effect on subsequent fertility or risk of ectopic pregnancy unless the termination was complicated by infection.

Compared to legislation elsewhere in the British Isles and Gibraltar, the Isle of Man is less restrictive than Ireland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar and more restrictive than Jersey, Guernsey, England, Scotland and Wales, the DHSC paper states.

Fewer than 10 terminations of pregnancy are carried out on island per year under the 1995 Act.

In 2015, 105 women giving an Isle of Man address had a termination in England or Wales.

The Post Office recently notified the DHSC that it had intercepted a small number of shipments of drugs to induce medical abortion sent to individuals in the Isle of Man from on-line suppliers in Europe or India.

’Quite apart from the legal considerations, use of drugs in this way raises safety concerns,’ states the report.

The paper notes that UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that abortion be decriminalised in all circumstances and that girls should have access to safe abortion care services.

It concludes: ’Whilst UN recommendations have no legal status, they do raise issues regarding potentially unsafe abortion practices (e.g. purchasing drugs on the internet) and discrimination against those who cannot afford to travel to the UK for termination of pregnancy.’

’These issues may have resonance for the Isle of Man,’ it adds.