Decriminalising Abortion in England and Wales

Five Strategic Lessons for Reproductive Freedom

Ruth Fletcher
21 July 2025

On 17 June 2025, British MPs took an important step in decriminalising abortion against a backdrop of rising prosecutions for ‘later’ abortion. Once the amended Crime and Policing Bill becomes law, people who voluntarily end their own pregnancies will be exempt from criminalisation. But, unless a further amendment is made, those good faith actors who provide abortion, or support others in getting access, remain at risk of criminal investigation. From a more holistic decriminalisation perspective, the Bill itself is problematic: it will be responsible for the kind of criminalisation of poverty and restriction of protest rights that makes reproductive life more difficult. Five aspects of the recent legal changes are worth emphasising as lessons for a strategic perspective on defending, and even expanding, reproductive freedom.

Continued: https://verfassungsblog.de/decriminalising-abortion-in-england-and-wales/

Fact Check: British MPs have not voted to legalise abortion up to birth

By Reuters Fact Check
June 25, 2025

British members of parliament have voted to decriminalise abortions for women, not legalise all abortion up to birth, contrary to online posts using the different legal terms interchangeably.

MPs backed a Crime and Policing Bill amendment, opens new tab on June 17 that would mean criminal penalties would no longer apply in England and Wales to women who abort their own pregnancies.

Labour MPs have voted in favour of legalising abortion up to birth," said a June 18 post, referring to the vote.

Continued; https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/british-mps-have-not-voted-legalise-abortion-up-birth-2025-06-25/

25.06.2025

1967 Abortion Act

anti-choice disinformation

anti-choice hypocrisy

anti-choice lies

Crime and Policing bill

Infant Life Preservation Act 1929

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

UK – Yes, Abortion Has Been Decriminalised, But The Law Needs To Go Further

By Nell Frizzell
21 June 2025

Around one in four women in the UK have an abortion during their lifetime. But that doesn’t mean abortion has been legal in this country; it hasn’t. Every person who has had an abortion has stepped into legal waters that are murky, if not outright dangerous. This week’s vote to decriminalise abortion, though the greatest reform to abortion laws in 60 years, still hasn’t legalised it; those one in four women still do not have true control over their bodies.

Under the Offences Against the Person Act, which came into power in 1861 (before women even had the vote, as many commentators have pointed out), as well as the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 (which criminalises later abortions), having or providing an abortion was a crime that could carry a life sentence. A life sentence. Do you ever just get the feeling that you’ve been living in an alternative universe? That black has been pink and water has in fact been solid all along? I do. Reading about the history of abortion law in this country is one the most extravagant exercises in bewilderment I’ve ever undertaken.

Continued: https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/abortion-law-change-uk

22.06.2025

Commentary

1967 Abortion Act

decriminalisation of abortion

Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929

Nell Frizzell

Nigel Farage

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

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

Abortion decriminalisation plans pushed by Labour MP

May 14, 2025
Sam Francis, BBC News

A Labour MP has launched a bid to decriminalise abortions, after campaigners revealed estimates that police have prosecuted more than 100 women under abortion laws in recent years.

Abortion remains a criminal offence in England and Wales unless under strict circumstances - including taking place before 24 weeks into the pregnancy with the approval of two doctors - under a 164-year-old law.

Tonia Antoniazzi, Labour MP for Gower, tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to decriminalise the process without "changing anything about provision of abortion care".

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dqp3dep48o

14.05.2025

News

abortion law reform

conscientious objection

decriminalisation of abortion

Nicola Packer

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

I’m from the UK. Here’s why I chose to pay for my abortion abroad

I felt safer getting my abortion in a country that forthrightly enshrines abortion access in law.

BY HANNAH SHEWAN STEVENS
10 June 2024

“Your boobs are huge,” my partner quipped from the hotel bed as I wiggled into my swimming costume. I laughed it off and jiggled them in his face before taking one last swim on our holiday in the Dominican Republic, trying to quiet that voice in the back of my head, whispering, “What if you are pregnant?”

Annoyingly, the lying, anxious voices were actually right this time. I was pregnant. The day after, we landed in Montreal, Canada, and took a test to discover that my gigantic boobs were, in fact, a harbinger of a pregnancy. The shock overwhelmed me; I spun between numbness, despair, confusing tinges of happiness for a child I’d never wanted, and anticipatory grief for what was to come.

Continued: https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/why-i-chose-abortion-abroad

UK – Abolish this archaic law that makes criminals of innocent women

MPs have the chance to end the traumatic prosecutions of women suspected of ending their pregnancies

Observer editorial
Sun 12 May 2024

According to one leading provider of abortion services in the UK, police investigations into women suspected of unlawfully ending their own pregnancy have increased substantially in recent years.

Earlier this year, MSI Reproductive Choices reported that this type of criminal investigation was very rare before 2018, but that it was aware of many more happening since then. While the number of women prosecuted for this offence remains small – four in the past 20 years – these police investigations can be traumatic for women, some of whom may have lost their babies, and the risk of prosecution can hang over them for months.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/12/the-observer-view-on-abortion-abolish-this-archaic-law-that-makes-criminals-of-innocent-women

12.05.2024

Editorial

Abortion Act 1967

decriminalisation of abortion

investigating women for abortion

MSI Reproductive Choices

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

prosecuting women for abortion

telemedicine abortion

UK – MPs propose decriminalising abortion up to 24 weeks

Amendment tabled by cross-party group including Stella Creasy is latest plan to modernise abortion law in England and Wales

Eleni Courea, Political correspondent
Mon 8 Apr 2024

A cross-party group of MPs is proposing to make abortion access a human right in England and Wales, putting forward legislation that would decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks and introduce protections against access being stripped back.

Proposals to modernise abortion law have been made in the form of amendments to the government’s criminal justice bill, which is due to be debated after parliament returns from its Easter recess later this month. The Commons speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, will choose which ones are voted on. MPs are expected to be given a free vote.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/08/mps-propose-decriminalising-abortion-up-to-24-weeks-england-wales-stella-creasy

UK – Senior Labour figures seeking to water down plans to decriminalise abortion

MPs due to have free vote on proposal but some in party have privately expressed concerns it goes too far

Eleni Courea Political correspondent
Sat 23 Mar 2024

Senior Labour figures want to water down proposed legislation to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales ahead of a historic Commons debate on the issue.

Later this spring, MPs are due to have a free vote on a proposal by the Labour MP Diana Johnson to abolish the criminal offence associated with a woman ending her own pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/23/senior-labour-figures-seeking-water-down-plans-decriminalise-abortion

Northern Ireland’s Abortion Law: An Outdated Norm or a Necessary Protection?

Mason Walker
24 Feb 2024

The Conviction of a 21-year-old Woman
In a tragic turn of events, a 21-year-old woman in Northern Ireland has been convicted for terminating her pregnancy using abortion pills. This conviction makes her the first person to be convicted for illegal abortion in at least a decade. The woman pleaded guilty to 'unlawful procurement of miscarriage' under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and was sentenced to a three-month jail term, suspended for two years.

The Desperate Dilemma of Unwanted Pregnancies

This case brings to the forefront the desperate dilemma faced by women with unwanted pregnancies in Northern Ireland. Legal abortion is limited, forcing many women to resort to dangerous methods such as drinking bleach or throwing themselves down stairs. It is also common for women to travel all the way to England for a termination.

Continued: https://medriva.com/health/northern-irelands-abortion-law-an-outdated-norm-or-a-necessary-protection

24.02.2024