Senior Labor figures are trying to water down plans to decriminalize abortion
Senior Labor figures want to water down proposed legislation to decriminalize abortion in England and Wales, ahead of a historic House of Commons debate on the issue.
Later this spring, MPs will be able to vote freely on a proposal from Labor MP Diana Johnson to abolish the criminal offense of a woman terminating her own pregnancy.
The proposal from Johnson, chairman of the home affairs committee, has support from MPs on both sides of the House and senior doctors’ groups. There is widespread expectation that this will turn into a major change in abortion law.
In England and Wales it is a criminal offense to have an abortion after 24 weeks, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Campaigners backing Johnson’s amendment, which would remove this crime, say it would ensure no woman can be prosecuted or jailed for terminating a pregnancy. Instead, abortion would be treated as a health care issue.
This would bring the law in England and Wales in line with that in Northern Ireland, where abortion was fully decriminalized in 2019. In Northern Ireland, women can no longer be prosecuted for abortion after 24 weeks, although such abortions are extremely rare as even early stage abortions occur. are only offered in clinics.
Some senior Labor figures have privately expressed concerns that Johnson’s proposal goes too far due to the provision of telemedicine in England and Wales, where a woman wanting an early abortion can be prescribed tablets at home without a consult a doctor.
Under rules introduced during the Covid pandemic and later made permanent, women in England and Wales can obtain abortion pills at home after a remote consultation. This is not an option in Northern Ireland, where the first of the two tablets required for an abortion can only be administered in a clinic.
There are concerns that under Johnson’s proposal, a woman who deceives an abortion provider into obtaining pills to end a pregnancy at home after 24 weeks would not be committing an offence.
There are also fears that such a change could be counterproductive, as it would create resistance from anti-abortion groups or see a rollback of telemedicine in England and Wales. “There are people who are questioning whether this is the right thing to do,” said one Labor MP.
Another Labor source said: “There is definitely a large group of undecided (and) lots of different people working on alternatives.”
Two influential Labor backbenchers have been in discussions about drafting several amendments to modernize abortion laws.
Some senior Labor figures want a more limited proposal that would effectively ensure women can never be jailed for terminating a pregnancy, but would not completely remove the criminal offense.
The House of Commons is expected to hold a historic debate on abortion when the criminal justice bill comes back home after Easter. Johnson’s proposal was made in the form of an amendment to that bill.
Calls for a review of the law have grown louder since Carla Foster, a mother of three, was jailed last year for terminating her pregnancy by taking pills outside the legal period. Her sentence was reduced on appeal.
Abortion law in England and Wales is based on the Offenses Against the Person Act 1861, which banned abortion and is still used to prosecute women today.
The 1967 Abortion Act decriminalized abortion in some circumstances, but is worded in such a way that abortion is not a right. Instead, women are exempt from prosecution if two doctors agree that the pregnancy would pose a risk to their physical or mental health. The law originally allowed terminations of up to 28 weeks, but this was reduced to 24 weeks in a 1991 amendment.
The 1967 law was never extended to Northern Ireland, where abortion was illegal until a 2019 law repealed key parts of the 1861 legislation. In 2020, a new legal framework was introduced to allow abortion services in Northern Ireland up to 24 weeks. As a result, the law in Northern Ireland is more current than in England and Wales. Scotland has separate laws and has set up a working group to investigate decriminalization.
Abortion is treated as a matter of conscience in parliamentary votes, so MPs from all parties can vote however they wish, without direction from the frontbench.
Victoria Atkins, the health minister, has suggested she could vote in favor of decriminalisation. A source close to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, said he planned to vote the way Atkins does.
Johnson’s amendment was signed by senior MPs including Labor MPs Jess Phillips and Harriet Harman, and Conservatives Tracey Crouch and Dehenna Davison. It has the support of MPs from six parties, giving it a strong chance of being selected for a vote by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle.
The amendment also has the support of the heads of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Midwives.
Johnson told the Guardian: “These laws are no longer fit for purpose. This is an opportunity to take a step forward and treat women’s right to choose as a healthcare issue and not a criminal justice issue. Society has moved on. Other countries in the world – France, Australia, New Zealand – have decriminalized abortion, as we did in Northern Ireland a few years ago. Why would a woman in Birmingham be treated differently from a woman in Belfast?”
Harman said: “Women who need to end their pregnancies need help, support and healthcare, not police, prosecutors and courts.”
Rachael Clarke, chief of staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said: “Every Labor MP elected in 2019 was elected on a manifesto committed to the decriminalization of abortion.”