UK – ‘Women have to fight for what they want’: UK campaigner’s 60-year unfinished battle for abortion rights

Diane Munday helped secure legal terminations in 1967 and, aged 94, is still calling for wider reproductive rights

Hannah Al-Othman
5 Jan 2026

When the 1967 Abortion Act cleared parliament, marking one of the most significant steps forward for women’s rights in history, Diane Munday was among the campaigners raising a glass of champagne on the terrace of the House of Commons.

“I’m only drinking a half a glass,” she told her colleagues at the time, “because the job is only half done.”

And, she was right. “Fifty years later, women were still going to prison,” says Munday, who co-founded the British Pregnancy Advice Service. She was also a leading member of the Abortion Law Reform Association during the 1960s and 1970s and is a patron of Humanists UK.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/05/uk-campaigner-diane-munday-unfinished-battle-abortion-rights


‘This Victorian-era law isn’t fit for purpose’: Is abortion finally going to be decriminalised?

People who get an abortion beyond legal time limits can face criminal prosecution in England and Wales. Labour MPs are out to change that

CHARLOTTE ELTON
2 Dec 2023

Abortion could soon be decriminalised in England and Wales, as MPs consider overhauling a “cruel” 162-year-old law.

People who get an abortion beyond legal time limits can face criminal prosecution in England and Wales.

Five women have faced this charge in English courts over the past year – up from four in total over the previous 55 years.

Continued: https://www.bigissue.com/life/health/abortion-law-decriminalised-england-wales/