Decriminalising Abortion in England and Wales

On 17 June 2025, British MPs took an important step in decriminalising abortion against a backdrop of rising prosecutions for “later” abortion. Once the amended Crime and Policing Bill becomes law, people who voluntarily end their own pregnancies will be exempt from criminalisation. But, unless a further amendment is made, those good faith actors who provide abortion, or support others in getting access, remain at risk of criminal investigation. From a more holistic decriminalisation perspective, the Bill itself is problematic: it will be responsible for the kind of criminalisation of poverty and restriction of protest rights that makes reproductive life more difficult. Five aspects of the recent legal changes are worth emphasising as lessons for a strategic perspective on defending, and even expanding, reproductive freedom.

Decriminalising abortion across pregnancy is necessary

At present, even though abortion has popular support in England and Wales and is widely available on the NHS within the legal framework adopted by the Abortion Act 1967, abortion is still a criminal offence with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Accessing abortion outside of the legal pathways provided by the Abortion Act 1967, including by self-administering abortion pills at more than 10 weeks gestation, falls within the scope of the criminal law. This is because the old criminal offences under sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act (OAPA) 1861 and the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929 remain on the books. These provisions criminalise abortion in England and Wales, while in Scotland abortion is a crime at common law. Abortion has been decriminalised¹⁾ in Northern Ireland as a result of reforms there in 2019-2022, and momentum has been building for broad decriminalisation across the UK and Ireland.

Amendment NC1 will now decriminalise abortion-seekers across pregnancy irrespective of gestational stage. The House of Commons voted 379 for, and 137 against, the amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill as proposed by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi. This change has resulted from a concerted multi-organisational campaign to confront the culture of suspicion that has hung over those experiencing pregnancy loss at a later stage of gestation. Dozens of girls, women, and pregnant people have been investigated in relation to abortion offences over recent years. In 2023, for example, a mother of three children was sentenced to 28 months in prison, reduced to 14 on appeal, for the offence of unlawfully procuring a miscarriage under s. 58 of the OAPA. She pleaded guilty in circumstances where she had had trouble accessing abortion during lockdown and had taken abortion pills resulting in a stillbirth at a later stage of pregnancy. These investigations are a new social phenomenon in Britain and a decisive break with an older pattern of non-use of the criminal abortion offences. Criminalisation of abortion-seekers has intensified in spite of the World Health Organisation, international human rights bodies, and professional organisations all making it clear that this compromises public health, human rights, and professional ethics.

One of the key challenges for the struggle for reproductive freedom is the emerging tendency to differentiate legally between “good/early” and “bad/late” abortions irrespective of the pregnant person’s life needs. The vote indicates that parliamentarians are willing to act against the harm that results from investigating, prosecuting and even convicting women and pregnant people for ending their own pregnancies. This is an important achievement especially in a context where an amendment that preserved criminalisation after 24 weeks had been circulating during previous reform debates.

The inadequacy of partial decriminalisation of abortion

If the success of amendment NC1 signalled an achievement in having the full spectrum of pregnancy recognised, the failure to recognise the full range of people who may be criminalised is troubling. In focusing on women, the amendment sought to remove the threat of criminalisation from abortion-seekers themselves, but not from those providing abortion or those assisting with access. This mirrors the approach adopted recently in Ireland (not Northern Ireland) where providers and assisters remain subject to criminal liability with a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison if an abortion is provided outside the terms of the statutory framework. Although no providers have been prosecuted in Ireland since the 2018 reform – and there was little history of provider prosecution even before then –  the criminal law’s stigmatisation has harmful effects.

A 2023 independent review of the operation of Ireland’s abortion service noted that the abortion service could benefit from more practitioners participating, that the post 12 week pathways were being implemented in more restrictive ways than necessary, and that the criminal liability of abortion providers was likely to be having a chilling effect. Leaving criminal liability in place for abortion providers and assisters preserves the kind of stigmatisation and threat that damages abortion care. The worry is that the punitive ideology which contributed to recent prosecutions of abortion-seekers could switch to abortion providers and supporters now that women have been removed as a target in England and Wales.

Members of the broader abortion-supporting community are concerned that England or Wales could yet see a feminist activist being prosecuted for abortion support, as is the case with Justyna Wydrzyńska in Poland. If a culture of suspicion continues, and even intensifies in the current climate, a parent, sibling, or friend could yet end up being charged with “supply” of abortion pills when they were simply supporting their loved one in becoming unpregnant. This is what happened in Northern Ireland before decriminalisation. A mother who ordered pills for her fifteen-year old daughter over the internet was prosecuted alongside her daughter. While criminal proceedings were dropped as a result of a moratorium on prosecutions secured during the 2019 reforms, these cases illustrate that decriminalisation of all those involved in abortion care is necessary.

The potential for alternative legal approaches

Concerns about partial decriminalisation had been circulating prior to the vote. Labour MP Stella Creasy, who had played a role in securing decriminalisation and the adoption of human rights standards in Northern Ireland, formulated an alternative amendment for decriminalisation – NC20 – which was broader in scope. The alternative got significant support and was included in the list of possible amendments but was not selected for a vote once NC1 was approved. One day before the vote, NC20 had the support of over 100 MPs, but apparently not the support of abortion providers according to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). Nonetheless this indicates that parliamentarians were prepared to engage in the possibilities of taking a bolder and broader approach to decriminalisation, including by being more future-oriented in adopting human rights standards.

Creasy’s amendment sought full decriminalisation (by repealing the criminal provisions), retention of the Abortion Act 1967 as the legal framework, and future adoption of CEDAW human rights standards. It would have required the Secretary of State to apply the human rights recommendations that produced decriminalisation in Northern Ireland (paragraphs 85 and 86 of the 2018 CEDAW Report). The CEDAW Report includes recommendations that the state party “establish a mechanism to advance women’s rights”, monitor compliance with international human rights standards, provide women with access to high quality abortion care, and adopt a strategy for combatting gender-based stereotypes. Creasy’s fallen amendment would have enabled future rights work in England and Wales by allowing the Secretary of State to make regulations for bringing the statutory framework for abortion into rights compliance. In this way, the amendment sought to decolonise to some extent by learning from the experience of Northern Ireland and mobilising more facilitatory rights-based frameworks for abortion regulation.

But in leaving the Abortion Act’s legal criteria in place, this amendment would still not achieve a substantive rights-based approach. Abortion-seekers would continue to need the approval of two doctors and to be scrutinised for meeting the statutory criteria. A movement away from this paternalist legal framework would require broader legislative change.

The importance of legal support for self-managed abortion

Another amendment – NC106 – brought forward by Conservative MP Caroline Johnson, would have rolled back telemedical methods of self-managed abortion care. MPs voted 379 to 117 against the amendment. This was at least as important an achievement as decriminalisation: abortion with pills has transformed abortion care and enabled women and pregnant people to oversee their own abortions without compromising safety and public health objectives. Legal support for self-managed abortion is vital in respecting bodily autonomy, and in reaching out to those whose vulnerable situations make clinic-based access difficult.

The legal infrastructure under the Abortion Act 1967 had been slow to accommodate home use of abortion pills. It took the crisis generated by the pandemic in 2020 to shake loose the Secretary of State’s attachment to the clinic or hospital as the key site for using abortion. And it took fear of losing the telemedical service that had become a key part of NHS delivery to motivate a cross-parliamentary group of MPs led by Baroness Sugg to make the legal arrangements permanent. In 2022, the Abortion Act 1967 was amended so that “home” became a lawful place where abortion pills could be self-administered once prescribed by doctor, nurse or midwife in the honest belief that the pregnancy had not exceeded 10 weeks.

Those who seek to restrict abortion access are likely to continue to target telemedical methods and the goal of supporting self-managed abortion by claiming that they are dangerous for girls, women, and pregnant people. As the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stated, the opposite is the case, given the extensive evidence that at home use improves care. The resounding vote against such a move on the 17^th June demonstrates a commitment to supporting self-management – a commitment which is at least as important as decriminalisation.

Reproductive freedom requires decriminalising everyday life

The 379/137 vote for decriminalisation of abortion across pregnancy was a significant moment for the movement for reproductive freedom, but the choice of the Crime and Policing Bill as the legal means was frustrating. The Bill advances a broader agenda of intensified policing in the name of achieving “Safer Streets”.  The concern is that it will criminalise everyday activities, including street behaviour and political protest, whose freedom is necessary for the reproduction of social life.

While the Bill has a broader agenda of reducing violence, including violence against women and girls, the means it adopts could exacerbate existing inequality and vulnerability. The Bill criminalises poverty through the adoption of new behaviour control orders called Respect Orders, breach of which could lead to imprisonment. Those who are homeless and already vulnerable are at risk of being pushed into the criminal justice system rather than receiving the care and support they need. The Bill also increases police powers and restricts rights to protest when protest is a vital community activity that strengthens the social fabric of life.

Mobilising in the longer-term interest for everyone’s reproductive freedom will require further thinking and action. This round of concrete legal engagement has seen a number of opportunities for further strategic intervention open up and close down.  Reconnecting and revitalising the movement for reproductive freedom in all its rich diversity through practical actions is key in turning shorter term opportunities into longer term transformation. Practical action in reaching out with information, support and access is likely to be more effective as the kind of “law work” that generates civic spaces for securing social relationships and making reproductive freedom possible.