A cross-party group of MPs is proposing to make access to abortion a human right in England and Wales, introducing legislation that would decriminalize abortion up to 24 weeks and introduce protections against access being withdrawn.
Proposals have been made to modernize abortion laws in the form of changes to the criminal justice bill, which will be debated after parliament returns from its Easter recess later this month. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, will choose which issues will be voted on. MPs are expected to have a free vote.
The latest proposal, tabled by MPs last week, aims to protect women who undergo abortions and the medical staff who perform them from prosecution. It would modernize the law by decriminalizing abortion up to 24 weeks and introduce a ‘lock’ to ensure future legislation and guidance protects the right to abortion.
This lock should ensure that access to abortion can only be restricted if that is the explicit will of parliament.
The amendment is supported by Stella Creasy, the Labor MP and abortion rights campaigner, and Dan Poulter, a former Tory health minister and doctor specializing in women’s health. Other MPs who have signed it include Labour’s Sarah Owen and Charlotte Nichols and the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas.
“Enshrining abortion as a human right will prevent further attacks on access and those who help women ensure abortion can be safe, legal and local,” Creasy said.
“The public is very clear: the 95% of women who have an early abortion should not have to justify their choice, and the small number of women who tragically have an abortion near the end of pregnancy has our need support, and not to be sent to prison. It is time that our legislation reflects this and comes into line with the rest of Western Europe.”
The MPs’ proposal is partly modeled on legislation introduced in Northern Ireland in 2019, where abortion laws are now less restrictive than in England and Wales. Abortions in Northern Ireland have been decriminalized. The Northern Ireland Secretary, currently Chris Heaton-Harris, has responsibility under the legislation for preventing a rollback in access to abortion.
Creasy said: “The lesson from Northern Ireland is to ensure that someone in government has direct responsibility to prevent behind-the-scenes attacks on abortion services by those who oppose them – to prevent those who oppose abortion from use seemingly progressive legislative changes as an excuse to issue guidelines or regulations through the back door that roll back advances such as telemedicine or time limits.”
This latest proposal gives MPs another way to modernize abortion laws in England and Wales. An existing proposal to fully decriminalize abortion, put forward by Diana Johnson, the Labor home affairs committee chair, has gained popularity among MPs. Johnson’s proposal would abolish the criminal offense of a woman terminating her own pregnancy, following the law in Northern Ireland.
The Guardian reported last month that some senior Labor figures were concerned that Johnson’s proposal goes too far due to the provision of telemedicine in England and Wales, which allows women to quit early by taking tablets at home without consulting a doctor . In Northern Ireland this is not an option.
Johnson’s proposal would mean that a woman who deceives an abortion provider into obtaining pills at home after 24 weeks to terminate a pregnancy would not commit a criminal offence.
Currently, abortion law in England and Wales is based on the Offenses Against the Person Act 1861, which banned termination of abortion, and is still used to prosecute women.
The Abortion Act 1967 decriminalized abortion in some circumstances, but is worded in such a way that abortion is not a right. Instead, a woman is exempt from prosecution if two doctors agree that the pregnancy would pose a risk to her physical or mental health. The legislation originally allowed notices of up to 28 weeks, but this was reduced to 24 weeks in a 1991 amendment.