Abortion’s unwelcome return to British politics

Parliament will vote tomorrow on a bill that could break the consensus on feminism’s great achievement.

The decision to have an abortion is deeply private and extremely personal. One in three women in the UK have undergone or will undergo this procedure, and despite the views of some pro-life groups, it does not make them guilty of “most significant violation of human rights ever to occur”. Since David Steel’s 1967 Abortion Act, passed almost 60 years ago, women in the UK have been able to access abortion up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy, safely and under the care of a medical professional. Because that is what abortion is: a medical procedure – one that it is essential women can continue to access safely, privately and without judgement.

Countless women before Steel’s reforms were not as fortunate; those who needed or wanted to end a pregnancy before 1967 were forced into desperate measures, making dangerous attempts at home or obtaining one via an illegal abortionist, some of whom were woefully qualified. The back-street abortionist, who looms in Annie Ernaux’s memoir Happening, is hard to forget. After obtaining an illegal abortion in 1963, the 23-year-old Ernaux almost died but she could not seek medical assistance because of the risk of prosecution. Though this is a French example, back-street abortionists and dangerous at-home methods were prevalent in the UK before 1967; that women are now able to access these procedures safely shows how much progress we’ve made since then.

But despite Steel’s progressive reforms, accessing an abortion in England and Wales in 2025 is still technically illegal. The Abortion Act decriminalised abortion under certain circumstances, exempting women from prosecution, but the act is framed in a way that means abortion is not a right. Though men enjoy complete autonomy over their reproductive health, women are still limited in theirs. Since 1967 they have continued to be prosecuted for accessing an abortion under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act; a recent example being Nicola Packer, who was arrested for taking abortion pills at 26 weeks. (Packer has since been acquitted, as she believed she was only six weeks along when she took the pills.)

Two amendments to the government’s Crime and Policing Bill, which enters its report stage in the House of Commons this week, aim to change this. One (known as NC1) has been brought by the Welsh Labour MP for Llanelli, Tonia Antoniazzi. It seeks to remove “women from the criminal law related to abortion”, meaning that “no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy”. Under NC1, women would be completely removed from the abortion criminal framework (they would no longer be able to be prosecuted under the 1861 act) but medical professionals would not be exempt. The logic of this is to make the law unworkable in practice, as accessing abortion is unsafe without medical assistance, meaning it will eventually be changed to exempt medical professionals from criminal liability.

Antoniazzi’s amendment accounts for the sensitivity of this issue. Instead of going full force on decriminalisation, and therefore risking a regression, it looks to change the law by stealth. NC1 has been backed by more than 50 cross-party MPs, including Labour’s Nadia Whittome and Antonia Bance and the Liberal Democrats’ Daisy Cooper, as well as pro-choice organisations such as MSI Reproductive Choices and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

Another (known as NC20) has been brought by Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow. Creasy’s amendment also looks to decriminalise abortion and make it a human right. Unlike Antoniazzi’s amendment, however, NC20 would remove criminal penalties for both women and medical professionals involved in abortions at the same time. It would ensure those who undergo a late-term abortion (up to birth) are not subject to prison sentences. Creasy’s amendment does not provide for coercive abortion offences, nor does it allow for the potential amendment of abortion law in the Commons in the future. In other words, this amendment would immediately force a major departure from the UK’s current abortion laws almost overnight, if it is passed. In contrast to NC1, the BPAS, MSI Choices and other pro-choice groups have not backed NC20. Rachel Clarke, head of advocacy at BPAS, said: “It is essential that any huge change to abortion law is properly considered.”

There is a pervading sense of confusion among Labour MPs (many of whom are broadly supportive of liberalising abortion rights) over why two amendments are being brought which essentially aim to do the same thing. Others are worried that by bringing two amendments at the same time draws too much attention to this issue; abortion rights are both incredibly important and incredibly divisive. They worry that debating both undermines the ability to make positive change. Though the public remains widely supportive of abortion rights (87 per cent are in favour), this support dips as soon as the question turns to the 24-week limit. While just under half (49 per cent) of Britons support it remaining at 24 weeks, a quarter of the public think it is too late.

Some in politics believe the debate should be reopened. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has already called for a debate over the UK’s abortion limit, with the aim of rolling back the timeline. “Is 24 weeks right for abortion given that we now save babies at 22?” he said. “That to me would be worthy of a debate in parliament.” If the law is moved too quickly to the extreme, this could leave ground for Farage and pro-life MPs and campaigners to capitalise on. That 25 per cent of the public is already a substantial proportion, and it could only grow if fuelled by the right campaign. The last thing women in the UK need is a regression in their ability to access a safe and supervised abortion.

Creasy clearly believes her amendment is a noble one. Writing for Glamour magazine, she said: “No one should have to explain why they choose to have an abortion, nor fear a knock on the door from the police if they do.” And she’s right. An abortion is a private medical decision made by a woman with advice from her doctor. But Creasy forgets that the UK is a small-c conservative country. Radical changes do not happen over night. Change to 150-year-old legislation must be made sensitively and stealthily. If parliament moves too suddenly, it risks undoing decades of fundamental progress for a woman’s right to control her own body; progress we must not be forced to give up.