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 – Police told how to search a woman’s home and her phone for evidence she’s had an abortion

Abortion providers say the new guidance proves how out of touch the police are – feeling women in vulnerable situations deserve compassion over prosecutions

By Jennifer Savin
19 May 2025

As anti-abortion groups in the UK step up their tactics and women's rights are being rolled back globally, the National Police Chiefs' Council has issued guidance in the UK telling officers how to search women's phones, menstrual-tracking apps and homes following a pregnancy loss, if they're suspected of having had an illegal abortion.

Branding the guidance 'harrowing' and flagging concerns that police did not consult with abortion providers before issuing it, Katie Saxon, Chief Strategic Communications Officer at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said, "As an abortion provider, we know how the police treat women suspected of breaking abortion law. But to see it in black and white, after years of criticisms of the way an outdated law is enforced, is harrowing.

Continued: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a64814425/police-guidance-abortion-drugs/

19.05.2025

News

arresting women for abortion

bodily autonomy

Clue

Louise McCudden

MSI Reproductive Choices

National Police Chiefs’ Council

Offences Against the Person Act

Why abortion rights in the UK are getting more and more perilous

Campaigners say confused health professionals are driving the increasing prosecutions of women. Others blame the police. But ultimately, the Crown Prosecution Service has questions to answer

Zoe Williams
Mon 19 May 2025

Earlier this month, Nicola Packer was found not guilty of illegally terminating a pregnancy, after taking abortion pills beyond the legal limit of 10 weeks. She had spent more than four years living in the shadow of this prosecution, every detail of which – as reported by Phoebe Davis – is completely harrowing. In 2020, Packer was arrested before she left Chelsea and Westminster hospital, still bleeding from major surgery.

Packer is one of six women to be prosecuted for this crime in England since the end of 2022, under the Offences Against the Person Act, which had previously only been used in such cases three times since its introduction in 1861. Even that striking, inexplicable figure doesn’t begin to describe how many people have fallen victim to these prosecutions. There have been cases of women denied contact with their children while police investigated a charge that came to nothing. A teenager who had a late miscarriage was arrested in front of her entire street – her privacy, her education, her peace of mind completely destroyed.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2025/may/19/why-abortion-rights-in-the-uk-are-getting-more-and-more-perilous

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

Antigua & Barbuda – Court of Appeal upholds High Court’s decision in abortion legislation case

28 February 2025
By Latrishka Thomas

Three Court of Appeal judges have unanimously ruled that they have “no basis to interfere” with the High Court’s decision regarding a motion to strike out a constitutional challenge to the nation’s abortion laws.

Last year, abortion rights advocates initiated legal action against the Attorney General concerning the Offences Against the Person Act, a 163-year-old Colonial-era statute.

They are challenging legislation which imposes severe penalties for abortion-related activities, including up to 10 years’ imprisonment for women who terminate pregnancies and two-year sentences for those who assist in such procedures.

Continued: https://antiguaobserver.com/court-of-appeal-upholds-high-courts-decision-in-abortion-legislation-case

28.02.2025

News

Offences Against the Person Act

Sexual Offences Act of 1995

Leading voices call for decriminalisation of women ending their own pregnancies

The new proposals would bring English and Welsh law in line with Northern Ireland where abortion was fully decriminalised in 2020, and also countries including France and Canada.

By Mollie Malone, home news correspondent
Sunday 12 January 2025
With Video – 3:19 minutes

More than 30 organisations are urging parliament to remove the threat of criminal investigation and prosecution for women who end their own pregnancies in England and Wales.

A joint statement, signed by leading abortion care providers and institutions including the British Medical Association, Women's Aid, and the Royal College of Gynaecologists, asks politicians to relook at the law to prevent women who are suspected of ending their own pregnancy outside of the legal abortion limits, from being criminally pursued.

Continued: https://news.sky.com/story/leading-voices-call-for-the-decriminalisation-of-women-ending-their-own-pregnancies-13287119

UK – ‘Unprecedented’ rise in abortion prosecutions prompts call for law change from medical leaders

Statement from groups including BMA and royal colleges says current law is causing ‘trauma and cruelty’

Shanti Das, The Guardian
Sun 12 Jan 2025

Medical leaders are calling for reform of abortion laws in England and Wales after an “unprecedented” rise in women and girls being prosecuted for ending their own pregnancies.

More than 30 groups – including the British Medical Association, the Faculty of Public Health, the British Society of Abortion Care Providers and the royal colleges of GPs, nurses, psychiatrists, midwives and anaesthetists – issued a joint statement warning that the current legislation is causing “trauma and cruelty” and demanding “immediate action” to safeguard reproductive rights.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/12/unprecedented-rise-in-abortion-prosecutions-prompts-call-for-law-change-from-medical-leaders

12.01.2025

News

1967 Abortion Act

Bethany Cox

British Medical Association

British Society of Abortion Care Providers

Carla Foster

criminalisation of abortion

Faculty of Public Health

Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health

Offences Against the Person Act

prosecuting women for abortion

RCOG

Royal College of General Practitioners

Royal College of Nursing

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

telemedicine abortion

Women’s Aid and Liberty

European abortion fund director discusses state of affairs

Mara Clarke is a longtime abortion activist who cut her teeth in American abortion rights movement. She's helping to lead a new continent that has seen massive changes in recent years.

Cody McDevitt
Nov 23, 2024

Europe has seen challenges to abortion rights as the medical landscape has shifted, and antiabortion reactionism has limited access to the procedure or medication.

Mara Clarke, co-founder of Supporting Abortions for Everyone, an abortion fund known as SAFE for short, spoke with me about the things they’ve sought to do to address the problems brought on by bans and restrictions in different countries. She does a presentation where she dispels the notion that Europe is an “abortion utopia.” “The law is one thing, and access is another,” Clarke said.

Continued: https://reprorights.substack.com/p/european-abortion-fund-director-discusses

23.11.2024

Offences Against the Person Act

prosecuting women for abortion

SAFE

Stray Bodies documentary

Supporting Abortions for Everyone

Caribbean: The Reverend fighting to bring abortion out of the darkness

Aug 22, 2024
Gemma Handy, St John’s, Antigua

The death of a mother-of-six from a botched abortion at an unlicensed clinic 10 years ago is one Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth will never forget.

It had been almost two decades since Guyana passed ground-breaking abortion reform legislation, yet no public hospitals offered terminations and doctors were not licensed to carry them out.

Women were still dying of abortions gone wrong,” Patricia tells the BBC. “They were using home remedies, bush medicine, unlicensed doctors. The law may have been passed but it took many years for it to be implemented. For me, it was an urgent cause.”

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93pqgvr0gwo

22.08.2024