Study title

Anonymised transcripts of interviews with (1) professionals working in the funerary industry (funeral directors, bereavement service managers, and officers at national funeral care institutions), (2) bereavement care providers in hospitals within NHS England, (3) support workers at the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (Sands), Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) and the Miscarriage Association (MA), (4) people (and partners of people) who have experienced a miscarriage, a stillbirth, or termination due to fetal anomaly. We also conducted focus group meetings with people (and partners of people) who have experienced a miscarriage, a stillbirth, or a termination due to fetal anomaly. We propose a socio-legal, linguistic study of how people in England who have experienced miscarriage, termination, and stillbirth reach decisions concerning the disposal of the remains of pregnancy, how their perceptions of the law impact on their decision-making, and how they communicate their experiences and choices to those who are there to support them. The project engages with an important and large-scale social issue: it is estimated that approximately 1 in 5 known pregnancies end in miscarriage, 1 in every 200 births is a stillbirth, and 2,000 terminations for reasons of fetal anomaly are performed in the UK each year. The study seeks to replace the social and legal uncertainty surrounding the question of what to do with the remains of pregnancy by engaging stakeholders with a view to producing evidence-led policy and practice. English law is not straightforward when it comes to definitions about the remains of pregnancy: in legal terms, the remains occupy a mid-way category somewhere between person and human tissue. Not surprisingly, those affected often lack knowledge of the legal options for the disposal of the remains. The disposal of the remains of pregnancy has been the subject of increased levels of media controversy and public scrutiny in the last 12 months. In the...