MPs have voted in favour of measures to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancies in the biggest change to the law on reproductive rights for half a century.
Women will no longer face prosecution for aborting their own baby for any reason and at any stage up to birth under the proposed legislation, which was backed by 379 votes to 137 on Tuesday night.
Tonia Antoniazzi, the Labour MP who put forward the amendment, said it will remove the threat of ‘investigation, arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment’ of any woman who acts in relation to her own pregnancy.
She told the Commons the current ‘Victorian’ abortion law in England and Wales is ‘increasingly used against vulnerable women’ and said her amendment was a ‘once-in-a-generation’ opportunity to change the law.
Ms Antoniazzi’s amendment will be the biggest change to the law concerning women’s reproductive rights since the 1967 Abortion Act.
It will alter the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act – which outlawed abortion – meaning it would no longer apply to women aborting their own babies.
MPs and pro-choice activists welcomed the abortion vote and said it will finally put an end to the prosecution of vulnerable women for ending their own pregnancies.
But anti-abortion campaigners and MPs opposed to the reforms said the move allows women to end the life of their unborn child right up to birth, and for any reason, without facing repercussions.
MPs have voted in favour of measures put forward by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi (pictured) to decriminalise women terminating their own pregnancies
Under Ms Antoniazzi’s amendment women will no longer be prosecuted for an abortion when it relates to their own pregnancy, even if they abort their own baby without medical approval or after the current 24-week legal limit.
However it maintains criminal punishments for doctors who carry out abortions beyond the legal limit and abusive partners who end a woman’s pregnancy without her consent.
Ms Antoniazzi listed examples of women who have recently been investigated or prosecuted for having an abortion, adding: ‘Just what public interest is this serving? This is not justice. It is cruelty, and it has got to end.’
‘Women affected are often acutely vulnerable victims of domestic abuse and violence, human trafficking and sexual exploitation, girls under the age of 18 and women who have suffered miscarriage,’ she said.
Six women have appeared in court in the last three years charged with ending or attempting to end their own pregnancy – a crime with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment – while others remain under investigation.
Tory MP Rebecca Paul said she was ‘disturbed’ by the decriminalisation amendment, which will mean that ‘fully developed babies up to term could be aborted by a woman with no consequences’.
‘The reason we criminalise late term abortion is not about punishment. It’s about protection,’ she added. ‘By providing a deterrent to such actions, we protect women.
‘We protect them from trying to perform an abortion at home that is unsafe for them. We protect them from coercive partners and family members who may push them to end late term pregnancies.’
MPs vote on amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday
Conservative MP Rebecca Smith told the Commons she the amendment risks ‘creating a series of unintended consequences which could endanger women rather than protect and empower them’.
‘If offences that make it illegal for a woman to administer her own abortion at any gestation were repealed, such abortions would de facto become possible up to birth for any reason, including abortions for sex selective purposes.’
Meanwhile Dr Caroline Johnson, a Tory MP and consultant paediatrician, said the proposed legislation creates a ‘situation where a woman is able to legally have an abortion up until term if she wants to’.
She tabled a separate amendment that would have made it mandatory for women seeking an abortion through the at-home ‘pills by post’ scheme introduced during the pandemic to have an in-person consultation with a doctor before they are prescribed the drugs.
However this was rejected last night as 379 MPs voted against it – the same number who backed decriminalising abortion.
Another amendment, put forward by Labour MP Stella Creasy, had also sought to repeal sections of the 1861 Act, decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks, and ensure that late-term abortions did not result in prison sentences.
Ms Creasy’s amendment would have gone go further in making it a human right for women to access abortion so that parliament could not, in future, roll back abortion rights as has happened in other countries.
However, Sir Lindsay only selected Ms Antoniazzi’s to be debated by MPs this evening, which had more than 170 backers last night – compared to over 110 for Ms Creasy’s.
Protesters from pro-life group ‘Christian Concern’ gather near Parliament, as MPs vote on the decriminalisation of abortion on June 17
During a Westminster Hall debate earlier this month, justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said the Government is neutral on decriminalisation and that it is an issue for Parliament to decide upon.
Though the Government took a neutral stance on the vote, several high-profile Cabinet ministers, including Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, were among the MPs who backed the amendment in the free vote.
Abortion in England and Wales currently remains a criminal offence but is legal with an authorised provider up to 24 weeks, with very limited circumstances allowing one after this time, such as when the mother’s life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability.
It is also legal to take prescribed medication at home if a woman is less than 10 weeks pregnant.
Efforts to change the law to protect women from prosecution follow repeated calls to repeal sections of the 19th-century law the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, after abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019.
The measures to decriminalise abortion, which still need to complete their legislative journey through both the Commons and the Lords before they can become law, were welcomed by leading abortion providers and physicians.
Heidi Stewart, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, BPAS, described it as a ‘landmark moment for women’s rights in this country’.
She said: ‘There will be no more women investigated after enduring a miscarriage, no more women dragged from their hospital beds to the back of a police van, no more women separated from their children because of our archaic abortion law.’
Protesters from pro-choice group ‘Abortion Rights’ react outside Parliament after MPs voted to decriminalise abortion on June 17
It was welcomed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, with its president Professor Ranee Thakar describing the vote as a ‘victory for women and for their essential reproductive rights’.
And the British Medical Association also welcomed the vote as a ‘significant and long overdue step towards reforming antiquated abortion law’.
But Alithea Williams, from the anti-abortion campaign group the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), said she was ‘horrified that MPs have voted for this extreme and barbaric proposal’.
She added: ‘This change has been made after only a few hours debate, with little notice. It was not in the Government’s manifesto, and it certainly doesn’t reflect public opinion.
‘We call on the Lords to throw this undemocratic, barbaric proposal out when it reaches them. We will never accept a law that puts women in danger and removes all rights from unborn babies.’
