Abortion no longer a criminal matter

British MPs have voted to decriminalise abortion, marking the biggest step forward in reproductive rights in almost 60 years.

- Hannah Al-Othman

In an amendment to the government's crime and policing bill, parliament voted to change the criminal laws that govern abortion in England and Wales so that women procuring their own termination outside the legal framework cannot be prosecuted.

The framework of access to an abortion—including the need for two doctors' signatures, and the time limits at which terminations can be carried out—will remain the same, and doctors who act outside the law will still face the threat of prosecution.

But women who terminate their own pregnancy outside the rules, for example after the time limit or by buying pills online, will no longer face arrest or prison. The offence of inducing a miscarriage carries a maximum sentence of life.

The amendment, put forward by the Labour backbencher Tonia Antoniazzi, passed in a free vote of MPs, with 379 voting in favour and 137 voting against. It came after growing calls for a change in the law as the number of women investigated, arrested or prosecuted has increased in recent years.

In 2022, a judge at Oxford crown court said he was "flabbergasted" that a prosecution had been brought against a then 25-year-old mother who had been reported to police when a clinician found pills in her body believed to be abortion medication - even though her 4lb 40z baby had survived.

The recorder, John Hardy KC, described the case as "sad and tragic" and the intended trial as a "waste of court time [that] exacerbates the absence of any public interest I can detect in pursuing this prosecution".