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Comparing the Burden: What Can We Learn by Comparing Regulatory Frameworks in Abortion and Fertility Services?

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Abstract

In the UK, regulation of clinical services is being restructured. We consider two clinical procedures, abortion and IVF treatment, which have similar ethical and political sensitivities. We consider factors including the law, licensing, inspection, amount of paperwork and reporting requirements, the reception by practitioners and costs, to establish which field has the greater ‘regulatory burden’. We test them based on scientific, ethical, social, political factors that might explain differences. We find that regulatory burden borne by IVF services is greater than in abortion, but none of the explanatory theses can provide a justification of this phenomenon. We offer an alternative explanation based on regulatory ‘overspill’ from research regulation and policy making, conceptualisation of risk regulation and a high public profile that locks a regulator into self-preservation.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to delegates at a 2009 workshop of the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute and in particular to James Lawford Davies for comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4EP, UK

    Sebastian Sethe

  2. Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life, Centre for Life, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4EP, UK

    Alison Murdoch

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  1. Sebastian Sethe
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Correspondence to Alison Murdoch.

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Sethe, S., Murdoch, A. Comparing the Burden: What Can We Learn by Comparing Regulatory Frameworks in Abortion and Fertility Services?. Health Care Anal 21, 338–354 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-011-0196-6

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