Last Wednesday (May 14), more than 50 cross-party MPs backed an amendment proposing to “decriminalise” abortion in England and Wales. Put forward by Welsh Labour Party MP, Tonia Antoniazzi, the amendment seeks to remove “women from criminal law related to abortion” and would mean “no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy”. MPs were set to vote on the amendment last summer, but parliament dissolved ahead of the 2024 general election.

The landscape of abortion in the UK is more complex than one might think. Abortion is technically “legal” in England, Scotland and Wales, and yet it is also a criminal offence. Below is an explainer on the 164-year-old law that makes abortion a criminal offence, what the amendment is fighting to change (and keep the same) and if activists and campaigners believe the amendment goes far enough in protecting people’s right to an abortion in the UK.

WHY IS ABORTION A CRIMINAL OFFENCE IN THE UK?

Abortion is a criminal offence in England and Wales under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and the 1926 Infant Life Preservation Act. The 1861 Act made it a crime for a woman or another person to “procure a miscarriage with an instrument or ‘poison or other noxious thing’ under any circumstances, punishable by life imprisonment”. The 1929 Act prohibited the intentional destruction of “the life of a child capable of being born alive… before it has an existence independent of its mother,” stating 28 weeks as the time a baby could exist independently of the mother. The 28-week limit was carried forward into the 1967 Abortion Act, but was later amended to 24 weeks by the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.

Those with the ability to get pregnant currently access abortion through the 1967 Act, which, as aforementioned, states that abortion is only legal if it does not exceed 24 weeks, is performed by a registered medical practitioner and authorised by two doctors (among other things). Some doctors abide by this rule, others do not, but it is still the law.

The 1861 Act and the 1926 Act (which criminalise “late term” abortions) have not yet been repealed by the government, meaning that if your abortion does not meet the fixed conditions of the 1967 Act, you can be prosecuted or receive a life sentence for your termination.

HAVE PREGNANT PEOPLE BEEN PERSECUTED UNDER THESE LAWS?

Yes, they have. Last year, abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices UK revealed that roughly 60 women who have had abortions have been investigated by police on suspicion of illegally ending a pregnancy since 2018. That number has now risen to 100.

In 2021, a 15-year-old girl faced a year-long criminal investigation over a stillbirth, which ended only after a coroner ruled her loss was due to natural causes. In 2022, a 24-year-old woman in Oxford went on trial for taking abortion medication Misoprostol that she bought online. Her case was dropped in December 2023, with the judge stating that he was “flabbergasted” that the prosecution was brought to court. In that same year, the Sunday Times reported that 20-year-old university student Laura*, was questioned by police while in hospital after taking abortion pills at home bought by her abusive boyfriend. She served two years in prison for her abortion at 30 weeks. At the time, she believed she was eight to ten weeks pregnant. In 2023, a 44-year-old mother of three was jailed for 28 months for taking abortion pills at roughly 32-34 weeks pregnant. Her prison time was later replaced with a 14-month suspended sentence. Most recently, 45-year-old Nicola Packer was arrested in a hospital after her abortion in 2020. During lockdown, she realised she was pregnant and ordered abortion medication online. She was 26 weeks pregnant, but believed she was 10 weeks. It took four-and-a-half years for her case to go to court, and last week she was cleared by a jury.

WHAT DOES THE AMENDMENT WANT TO CHANGE EXACTLY?

The decriminalising abortion amendment is calling for “women” to be removed from the 1861 Act and the 1929 Act in relation to their own pregnancies, bringing England and Wales in line with the North of Ireland, where abortion has been decriminalised since 2019. This amendment does not include Scotland, where people still have to travel to England to obtain an abortion after 20 weeks.

The amendment does not want to change the provisions already set out on abortion care in England and Wales or the laws that govern doctors, nurses and midwives. There will be no change to the 24-week time limit (and in exceptional circumstances beyond), no change to the 10-week limit on telemedicine, and it will still require two doctors’ signatures to be legally provided, among other things.

DOES THE AMENDMENT GO FAR ENOUGH IN PROTECTING THOSE WHO NEED ABORTIONS?

Since its announcement, the amendment has been praised and supported by left-wing, feminist media and abortion groups. Still, community groups like Ad’iyah Collective, a pro-abortion collective of doulas who support Muslims and their communities through pregnancy endings, do not believe the amendment goes far enough. “Only the full decriminalisation, the complete removal of abortion from any form of policing bill and the criminal justice system, is the solution. We need all limits removed when people seek abortion; as early as possible and as late as necessary,” AZ, a representative from Ad'iyah, tells Dazed.

It’s also important to note how the amendment uses the word ‘women’. Antoniazzi, who put forward this amendment, is known for her support of gender critical groups such as the Labour Women’s Declaration group. She has also supported well known TERFs on social media, so it is not surprising following the UK Supreme Courts ruling last month, which defined a woman based on biological sex and has removed trans women from the same protection as cisgender women, that this amendment would be trying to define womanhood through an individual’s biological capabilities, excluding trans men and nonbinary people from abortion narratives. “I would like to see a decriminalisation of abortion that holds space and advocates for bodily autonomy for trans people as well as cisgender people. For me, those things can not be separated,” AZ explains.

They continue: “Abortion is the only medical procedure that someone has where two doctors need to sign off on it, and that leaves people open to a lot of potential harm. I recently supported someone who said their reason for wanting an abortion was because they don’t want to have a child, and they were met with a barrier from a practitioner who told them that that was not a ‘valid legal reason’. They then had to construct their reason through our legal frameworks by stating that it would impact their mental health.” AZ adds that abortion should be seen as neutral. “It is something that happens. It’s a transition in a person’s life. But the way abortion currently exists in the UK turns that transition into a traumatic experience.”