About us

Our aims

We are a group of UK-based clinicians who believe that evidence-based, high-quality abortion care should be recognised as a routine part of women’s reproductive healthcare and accessible to everyone who needs it.

What we do:

Promote the idea of ‘conscientious commitment’ to abortion care and inspire future abortion providers
Work towards the destigmatisation and normalisation of abortion for those accessing and those providing abortion care
Advocate for comprehensive abortion care teaching as part of the core curriculum in all UK medical schools
Support evidence-based workshops on pregnancy-decision making and abortion in secondary schools
Draw attention to current workforce issues in abortion care and call for improved postgraduate training pathways
Raise awareness of the problems with current UK abortion law and campaign for the decriminalisation of abortion across the UK

Our history

Doctor's for Choice UK was formerly Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on Abortion.

Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on Abortion was set up in 1976 with the following aims:

to make it clear to the public and to MPs that a large number of doctors would favour a change in the law to give women the right to make the abortion decision
to press for such a change in the law
to answer at a medical level the arguments of anti-abortionists

Within the limits of the existing law, DWCA campaigned for:

improved facilities for abortion, including day-care early medical abortion and the introduction of home medical abortion
all areas to meet the of the standards in the RCOG guidelines, “The Care of Women Requesting Induced Abortion“, which include waiting times and provision for counselling

DWCA changed its name to Doctors for Choice UK on 27 April 2018, the 50th anniversary of the implementation of the 1967 Abortion Act.

The committee

Co-Chair

Wendy Savage

Wendy is a Retired Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant at The Royal London Hospital, and Honorary Professor at Middlesex University's Department of Health and Education.

She was Press Officer and Co-ordinator of Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on Abortion (DWCA) from 1977-2017 and now Co-chair of Doctors for Choice UK (DfC), President of Keep Our NHS Public, BMA Council member and Public Governor, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust.

During her career she worked in the USA doing research, Nigeria and Kenya, and New Zealand where she set up an abortion service despite the law being like it was in GB before 1967.

When she returned to the UK in 1976 she worked with the late Professor Huntingford and joined DWCA. They set up a
successful Day Care Abortion Service at the Mile End Hospital.

Secretary

Hayley Webb

Hayley is a GP in North West London as well as a Sexual Offences Examiner working for the Haven’s SARC. She has experience working in sexual healthcare, contraception and abortion care.

Hayley joined Doctors for Choice UK in 2014 due to her strong feminist values and interest in women's reproductive rights and has been our secretary since 2017.

She looks forward to decriminalisation of abortion in the UK and being able to provide high-quality abortion care as a GP within the primary care setting.

Treasurer

Polly Cohen

Pollyanna is an Academic Foundation Doctor with research in Women’s Health. She is currently Treasurer and Content Creator for Doctors for Choice UK.

For the last 5 years, she has directed plays, edited documentaries, created music videos and dressed as a vulva all in the name of promoting women’s reproductive rights.

When not dressed as a vulva, Pollyanna manages DfC UK’s finances, runs training sessions for Education for Choice and speaks at conferences about improving medical school abortion curricula and using the arts to destigmatise abortion. She really wants DfC UK merchandise to include branded umbrellas.

Campaigns and Policy Rep

Sean Rees

Sean is a final year medical student at UCL.

He first became involved in Doctors for Choice UK as student representative, but now leads our work on campaigns and policy related to abortion care.

He hopes to specialise in O&G and become a conscientiously committed provider of abortion care.

Workforce Rep

Alice Howe

Alice is a GP Academic Clinical Fellow, working in Tower Hamlets. She has been a member of DfC since 2016. She studied Reproductive Science and Women’s Health for her MSc at UCL.

She is currently the workforce representative and hopes to increase conscientious commitment to abortion care amongst doctors. Within the scope of the Workforce Working Group, she hopes to help shape the future of abortion care provision, within primary care.

Provider Rep

Tracey Masters

Dr Tracey Masters works as a Consultant in Sexual and Reproductive Health Care at an NHS hospital in East London (Homerton University Hospital). She is proud to lead its abortion service, and to be part of the Women’s Health and Sexual Health teams there which serve the diverse population of Hackney.

Tracey is a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and of the Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Health.

She is a founding member of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers (BSACP) and the current Membership Secretary.

@traceyamasters

Events officer

Annie Miller

Annie is a junior doctor working in south London and hopes to work in abortion care in the future. Since leaving medical school, she has been interested in abortion care education and doctors’ commitment to reproductive rights.

As DfC’s events representative, she aims to help deliver events which mirror the current legal changes happening in relation to abortion, and is hopeful that the coming years will bring greater reproductive freedom to the UK.

Co-Chair

Jayne Kavanagh

Jayne Kavanagh is a Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow and medical ethics lead at UCL Medical School, and a sexual and reproductive health specialty doctor in North/East London. She set up UCL’s flagship widening participation project Target Medicine, and Viva la Vulva, a reproductive rights action group for medical students. She trains UCL medical students to run ‘Education for Choice’ workshops in London schools and supports colleagues to roll out the programme nationally.

Jayne is co-chair of Doctors for Choice UK and a member of the RCOG abortion taskforce group. In 2017, she produced and directed the documentary Kind to Women, to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act. She has toured the UK with My Body My Life, a multimedia exhibition that addresses abortion-related stigma, and was the clinical and ethical consultant on I told my mum I was going on an RE trip, a verbatim theatre piece exploring the ethical and practical issues related to young people and abortion.

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Education for Choice Rep

Corrina Horan

Corrina is a junior doctor who is currently studying an MSc in Reproductive and Sexual Health research.

She first became conscientiously committed to abortion care whilst studying clinical medicine at UCL, and has been an active member of Doctors for Choice UK since this point.

She has a particular interest in the way in which abortion is taught, both at undergraduate level and as part of PSHE in schools and sixth form colleges, and is lead for the Education working group

Social media

Catriona Renninson

Catriona is a 5th Year medical student at UCL, who hopes in the future to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, and become an abortion provider.

She became interested in reproductive rights in her first year of medical school, having moved to London from small-town Scotland. Since then, she has been involved in teaching secondary school students about abortion with Education for Choice, and led a research project examining abortion teaching in UK medical schools. She has been actively involved in campaigning, and spoke at the London March for Choice in June 2019. Catriona set up the DfC Facebook page in 2018, and is part of the social media working group. She also recently ran a half marathon to raise money for BPAS!

Membership and Engagement

Tom Merewether

Tom is a junior doctor based in Glasgow.

He has been involved in Doctors for Choice UK since late 2016, when he was still a medical student in London.

He is interested in developing Doctors for Choice UK's engagement with out membership and expanding this to other areas across the UK.

He hopes to work in Sexual and Reproductive Health after completing his foundation training.

Student representative

Marina Politis

Marina is a second year medical student at the University of Glasgow who is passionate about women's health, sexual health and reproductive rights.

She feels strongly about equity of access to free, safe, legal abortions for patients and sex education in schools both nationally and globally, as well as comprehensive education on abortion for medical students. This passion started with being involved with the Repeal the 8th campaign in Dublin as a school student.

She is interested in OBGYN and general practice, as well as mental health and medical education.

Northern Ireland Rep

Jill McManus

Jill is our Northern Ireland rep and a 4th year medical student at Queen’s University Belfast. She is involved in Northern Ireland activism both as NUS-USI Women’s Officer and with organisations including Alliance for Choice and Medical Students for Choice QUB. Her interests include sexual health, abortion rights and anaesthetics.