UK – We still need to have difficult conversations about abortion

Landmark changes to abortion legislation earlier this week will doubtless spark fiery debates at heatwave barbecues. Here, Claire Cohen explains how Gen Z women can take the sting out of discussions about those who opt to terminate their pregnancies after 24 weeks

Saturday 21 June 2025
Claire Cohen

My mother remembers that, when she was a child, a friendly woman, probably in her thirties, lived next door. One day, that woman was gone. Another neighbour had helped her to carry out a “backstreet abortion” – in the days when terminating a pregnancy was illegal, but coathangers were not – and she’d bled to death in her own home.

I don’t even know her name. But I thought of that poor woman this week when MPs voted overwhelmingly to stop women in England and Wales from being prosecuted for ending a pregnancy outside the law – for instance, after 24 weeks. Thank goodness, I thought, we live in a nation where women no longer have to risk death or imprisonment in desperate situations.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/abortion-decriminalised-24-weeks-shelagh-fogarty-b2774030.html

Abortion laws in England and Wales face biggest shake-up in nearly 60 years

Parliament set to vote on decriminalising abortion, with rival amendments submitted by two Labour MPs

Hannah Al-Othman North of England correspondent
Mon 16 Jun 2025

Parliament is set to vote on whether to decriminalise abortion on Tuesday, in what would be the biggest shake-up to reproductive rights in England and Wales in almost 60 years.

Fierce battles have been fought behind the scenes, with Labour backbenchers Tonia Antoniazzi and Stella Creasy lobbying in an effort to have their rival amendments taken forward for a vote.

It is understood only one will be voted on, and with Antoniazzi’s being the lead amendment on the order paper, it is more than likely that hers will be selected.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/16/abortion-laws-in-england-and-wales-face-biggest-shake-up-in-nearly-60-years

British women are being jailed under archaic abortion laws. MPs can act to end that this week

Women will really have the right to choose if politicians vote to revoke this Victorian-era legislation

Frances Ryan
Mon 16 Jun 2025

You might have seen their faces. Every few months nowadays, another woman appears in a British newspaper charged with a suspected illegal abortion. Often the woman looks pale and gaunt. Sometimes she hides behind sunglasses as she bows her head. The photographs of these women walking into court feel akin to a public shaming, where the stocks are replaced by a breaking news banner, but the judgment remains the same.

If this sounds like a punishment from a different time, it’s because it is. The law that’s largely used to prosecute women for a suspected illegal abortion was written in 1861 – that’s before women had the right to vote or own property independently. While the Abortion Act in 1967 gave widespread access to abortion, it was never made fully legal on the statute books.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/16/abortion-law-injustice-mps-can-act-to-revoke-legislation-this-week

16.06.2025

Commentary

Abortion Act 1967

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Abortion law reform in the UK

BMJ 2025; 389 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1243
16 June 2025
Jonathan Lord, Nicola Packer, Tonia Antoniazzi, Janet Barter, Lesley Regan

Decriminalisation needed to protect women from persecution

Abortion is still a criminal offence in England and Wales, with access to abortion permitted under specific circumstances defined in the Abortion Act 1967. One of us (Nicola Packer) was recently acquitted after standing trial in England having been accused of an illegal abortion.1 The high profile case has highlighted deficiencies in the current legal framework, underscoring the need for decriminalisation.2

Packer was the sixth woman to have appeared in court since December 2022 charged with ending her own pregnancy, although around 100 have endured the trauma of criminal investigation in the past five years.34 In November 2020 she took abortion medication (mifepristone and misoprostol), prescribed over the phone during covid-19 lockdown. The gestation limit for most abortions in England is up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, and 10 weeks for self-administered medical abortion at home. Packer delivered the fetus at home unaware that she had been beyond 10 weeks’ gestation, with the head circumference and an examination by an obstetrician suggesting it was 22-24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/389/bmj.r1243

16.06.2025

Offences Against the Person Act

UK – “This is about having control over reproductive rights”

MSI’s deputy medical director on the upcoming vote that could end women being prosecuted for abortions

By Sarah Salkeld
June 15, 2025

Next week, MPs will have the chance to vote on the NC1 amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that would prevent women from being prosecuted for ending their own pregnancy. Here, Sarah Salkeld, deputy medical director at MSI Reproductive Choices, discusses current abortion law, the need for reform and why this vote could signal a monumental shift in reproductive care for women.

As told to Susanne Norris
Abortion law is complicated – I can see why a lot of people might be confused about it or feel like they don’t have enough information to hand. Essentially, in England, Scotland and Wales, the Abortion Act of 1967 means that abortion is legal, but you’ve got to meet a specific set of criteria – including two doctors giving consent for the abortion and for women to give certain reasons for wanting one – in order to access it. At MSI, we can provide abortions up to 23 weeks and six days. The law only allows an abortion to take place after this if there is a risk to someone’s life or a very severe foetal abnormality is found.

Continued: https://www.stylist.co.uk/health/abortion-decriminalisation-vote-crime-policing-bill/993811

15.06.2025

Interviews/Podcasts

Abortion Act 1967

decriminalisation of abortion

Infant Life Preservation Act

MSI Reproductive Choices

NC1 amendment

Offences Against the Person Act

prosecuting women for abortion

UK – Creasy attempt to change abortion law ‘not supported by service providers’

British Pregnancy Advisory Service says NC20 amendment to criminal justice bill ‘not right way’ to overhaul the law

Hannah Al-Othman
Tue 10 Jun 2025

An attempt to change the law on abortion led by the Labour MP Stella Creasy is not supported by “any of the abortion providers in the country”, a leading pro-choice charity has said.

Rachael Clarke, the head of advocacy at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas), said Creasy’s NC20 amendment to the criminal justice bill “is not the right way” to overhaul abortion laws.

Bpas is instead backing a separate proposal, NC1, put forward by another Labour backbencher, Tonia Antoniazzi.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/10/creasy-attempt-to-change-abortion-law-not-supported-by-abortion-providers-bpas

MPs debate decriminalising abortion in England and Wales

3 June, 2025
MPs yesterday debated decriminalising abortion following a public petition on the subject. The debate was led by All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group member Tony Vaughan MP. Humanists UK welcomes the debate and calls on MPs to back an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to take abortion out of the criminal code. This is likely to be voted on later this month.

The debate was called as the petition calling on the Government to decriminalise abortion received more than 100,000 signatures. It took place ahead of a proposed amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill which seeks to remove women from the criminal law in relation ending their own pregnancies led by Tonia Antoniazzi MP and has the support of over 115 cross-party MPs and 50 pro-choice organisations including BPAS, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and Humanists UK. The amendment will not change abortion time limits or its provision in any way. If selected, the amendment will be voted on later this month.

Continued: https://humanists.uk/2025/06/03/mps-debate-decriminalising-abortion-in-england-and-wales/

After ‘Shocking’ Police Abortion Guidance, Here’s What Campaigners Want To Happen Next

“We only have a few weeks to win this vital fight for our freedoms," said Labour MP Stella Creasy.

By Amy Glover
27/05/2025

Following the release of new police guidance detailing how to seize phones and search for medications used to terminate pregnancies in the homes of women after unexpected pregnancy loss, campaigners and doctors are urgently calling for abortion to be decriminalised.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has branded the guidance on child death investigation, which comes from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and was updated earlier this year, as “truly shocking”.

Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/doctors-condemn-post-pregnancy-loss-police-guidleines_uk_682c8fc3e4b095274fad867f

UK – Police could search homes and phones after pregnancy loss

New national guidance suggests officers look for menstrual tracking apps or abortion drugs

Saturday 17 May 2025
Phoebe Davis

Police have been issued guidance on how to search women’s homes for abortion drugs and check their phones for menstrual cycle tracking apps after unexpected pregnancy loss.

New guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) on “child death investigation” advises officers to search for “drugs that can terminate pregnancy” in cases involving stillbirths. The NPCC, which sets strategic direction for policing across the country UK, also suggests a woman’s digital devices could be seized to help investigators “establish a woman’s knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy”. That could include checking a woman’s internet searches, messages to friends and family, and health apps, “such as menstrual cycle and fertility trackers”, it states.

Continued: https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/police-could-search-homes-and-seize-phones-after-sudden-pregnancy-loss

UK woman accused of using pills for illegal abortion during Covid lockdown

Nicola Packer, 44, was arrested at a London hospital after reporting a miscarriage in 2020, court told

Hannah Al-Othman
Thu 24 Apr 2025

A woman has gone on trial in London accused of illegally taking pills in order to induce an abortion during the second coronavirus lockdown.

Nicola Packer, 44, was arrested in November 2020 after she went to hospital having miscarried a foetus, and later reported to staff that she had taken abortion medication.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/24/uk-woman-accused-using-pills-abortion-covid-lockdown

24.04.2025