Inside the fight to decriminalise abortion in the UK

More than 50 MPs have backed an amendment to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales. But does it offer real change, and why is it being championed by those with anti-trans sentiments?

Halima Jibril
May 19, 2025

Last Wednesday (May 14), more than 50 cross-party MPs backed an amendment proposing to “decriminalise” abortion in England and Wales. Put forward by Welsh Labour Party MP, Tonia Antoniazzi, the amendment seeks to remove “women from criminal law related to abortion” and would mean “no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy”. MPs were set to vote on the amendment last summer, but parliament dissolved ahead of the 2024 general election.

The landscape of abortion in the UK is more complex than one might think. Abortion is technically “legal” in England, Scotland and Wales, and yet it is also a criminal offence. Below is an explainer on the 164-year-old law that makes abortion a criminal offence, what the amendment is fighting to change (and keep the same) and if activists and campaigners believe the amendment goes far enough in protecting people’s right to an abortion in the UK.

Continued: https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/66834/1/inside-the-fight-to-decriminalise-abortion-in-the-uk-england-wales

UK – Prosecuted, shamed and traumatised for mistake of taking abortion pills too late

In 2020, Nicola Packer had an abortion - then was arrested and put on trial. Now, found not guilty, she hopes she will be the last woman in history prosecuted under England’s archaic law

Friday 16 May 2025
Phoebe Davis

Nicola Packer was still bleeding from major surgery when she was arrested, escorted by two police officers out of hospital, put in the back of a van and taken to Charing Cross police station.

She saw strangers’ faces, patients and staff staring at her. “You look around to see if people are looking at you, thinking, ‘Oh my God, what has she done?”

Packer is sitting on her sofa at home in a small seaside town. The living room leads out on to a patio covered in flower pots, where she likes to spend her evenings after work.

Continued: https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/prosecuted-shamed-and-traumatised-for-mistake-of-taking-abortion-pills-too-late

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

UK – The Guardian view on abortion prosecutions: decriminalisation can’t wait

The trial of Nicola Packer shows why MPs should seize the opportunity to change the law and safeguard vulnerable women now

Editorial
Wed 14 May 2025

The Crown Prosecution Service has yet to explain why it thought that pursuing a case against Nicola Packer was in the public interest. Thankfully, jurors last week cleared the 45-year-old of illegally terminating her pregnancy. But more than four years of police and criminal proceedings have had a lasting impact on a woman already traumatised by discovering that she was 26 weeks pregnant, not about 10, when she acted. The trial dragged her private life – even her sexual preferences – into the public eye. Understandably, she called it “humiliating”. But it is prosecutors who should feel shame.

Ms Packer was prescribed abortion pills in a remote consultation, due to a Covid lockdown. Prosecutors alleged that she deliberately breached the abortion time limit. Jurors believed Ms Packer, who said that she was horrified to realise how advanced her pregnancy was when she saw the foetus and that she “wouldn’t have put the baby or myself through it” had she known.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/14/the-guardian-view-on-abortion-prosecutions-decriminalisation-cant-wait

14.05.2025

Editorial

1967 Abortion Act

British Medical Association

Crown Prosecution Service

decriminalisation of abortion

UK – ‘Utterly traumatised’: anger at ordeal of UK woman accused of illegal abortion

Calls for law change after ‘cruel and unnecessary investigation’ into Nicola Packer that CPS brought to trial

Hannah Al-Othman and Raphael Boyd
Thu 8 May 2025

When Nicola Packer took a pregnancy test in November 2020, as the country was in lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, she did not even believe she was pregnant.

Aged 41 at the time, she thought it more likely that she was perimenopausal, but had been feeling under the weather and when her friend – with whom the pregnancy had been conceived – suggested she took a test, she only did so to “prove him wrong”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/08/anger-ordeal-woman-accused-abortion-nicola-packer

08.05.2025

Commentary

Charing Cross hospital

Jonathan Lord

MSI Reproductive Choices

Nicola Packer

prosecuting women for abortion

MPs set to vote on decriminalizing abortion in England

Two U.K. Labour MPs are drawing up amendments on the issue that will likely be considered by the House of Commons this summer.

May 1, 2025
By Dan Bloom

LONDON — The U.K. parliament is set to consider decriminalizing abortion in England and Wales this summer, two people with knowledge of the plans have told POLITICO.

Two backbench Labour MPs are drawing up separate proposals to change the law which would be brought before MPs in the coming months, after previous plans ran out of time before the 2024 general election.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/mp-vote-decriminalize-abortion-england/

UK – Abortion could be decriminalised in England and Wales

The 164-year-old law banning abortion was amended in 1967 and again in 1991

By Neil Shaw, Assistant Editor
11 MAR 2025

Proposals to remove criminal sanctions for abortion in England and Wales are expected to be revived by MPs trying to amend the Crime and Policing Bill. Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) said women continue to be at risk of prosecution as the Commons heard 100 have been investigated by police in the last five years.

The 164-year-old law banning abortion was amended in 1967, legalising abortion with an authorised provider up to 28 weeks, which was later lowered to 24 weeks in 1991. There are very limited circumstances that allow an abortion after 24 weeks, such as when the mother’s life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability.

Continued: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/abortion-could-decriminalised-england-wales-10011474

11.03.2025