The Right-Wing Misinformation Campaign Against Decriminalising Abortion Debunked

Last week the House of Lords backed an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to end the criminalisation of women seeking abortion. The move has since been met with a flurry of misinformation and rage from the British right. 

Peers supported Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi’s bid to end the criminalisation of women seeking abortions, in place under a 164-year-old Victorian law, in an amendment to the Bill.

The historic vote was reached following a failed attempt to strike out Antoniazzi’s amendment from the bill by Conservative peer Baroness Monckton, who labelled it a “radical proposal”. 

The changes would mean that women would no longer face prosecution or investigation for seeking an abortion, and that those who have been convicted and jailed over abortions outside of the legal framework are set to be pardoned, and their records expunged. 

Criminalisation has seen vulnerable women in England being arrested and facing police investigations for suspected illegal pregnancy terminations, with a 2024 BBC probe finding that an “unprecedented” number of women are being investigated on suspicion of ending a pregnancy illegally, an offence which carries a maximum term of life imprisonment. 

In England, Scotland and Wales, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks with approval of two doctors, though after 10 weeks must be carried out in an approved clinic or NHS hospital. Abortions after 24 weeks are only allowed in extremely limited circumstances, such as foetal abnormalities or threat to the life of the woman.   

Fundamentally, the amendment does not make changes to the Abortion Act, which sets out the legal framework within which abortions can be carried out. Medical professionals still potentially face prosecution if they perform an abortion beyond the 24-week limit, and the time limits on abortions have not changed. 

The move will simply make abortion a healthcare-based rather than criminal issue. But this has not stopped a tidal wave of misinformation being peddled online by many on the Right.

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UK Right Responds

Senior politicians have implied the move will make all abortion “legal up to birth”, a false claim often repeated by anti-abortion groups. 

Despite referring to herself as “pro-choice”, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch has said decriminalising abortion for women is “too much” and that she did not agree with allowing women to have an abortion “at the last minute, when a baby is completely viable”.

Former MEP Annunziata Rees-Mogg has stated on GB News that ‘this is basically allowing for backstreet abortions to be legalised’, with the channel posting on X that she was reacting to ‘a bill that allows for abortion up until birth’. 

Lord Alton of Liverpool has said that “This clause would in effect permit abortion on demand right up to birth.” 

And Reform UK’s Suella Braverman tweeted that “Debates around lowering the term limit from 24 weeks remain unwhipped and a matter of individual conscience. But it is clear that abortion up to birth is repulsive and a Reform UK government would reverse it immediately.”

The more extreme fringes of British politics have also attacked the move. Paul Golding, leader of the far-right Britain First claimed the move was “Satanic”. 

And Charlie Downes, spokesperson for Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, took to social media to decry this as “one of the darkest days in recent history for Britain”, saying that “Restore Britain will reverse that”. 

Both Golding and Downes also referred to the changes as legalising “abortion up to birth”, a phrase that campaign group Abortion Rights UK has described as ‘simply scaremongering’. 

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Challenging Misinformation

Speaking to Byline Times, campaigners have hit back at the claims. A spokesperson for Doctors for Choice UK, a group of UK-based clinicians and healthcare students campaigning for the decriminalisation and destigmatisation of abortion, said they were “delighted” with the “historic and urgently needed change” that would “end the intrusive investigation and prosecution of women for ending their own pregnancy.”

“A lot of misinformation has surrounded this vote. This decision will bring no change to current legal gestation limits or have any impact on provision of abortion care, but will simply put an end to the criminalisation of those who may act outside of legal frameworks.” In other words, abortion ‘up to birth’ would not be legalised – the pregnant women involved would simply not be prosecuted. Those who facilitate such abortions would still face prosecution. 

Rachael Clarke, head of advocacy at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), explained that: “The law change is simple – it says “For the purposes of the law related to abortion…. No offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.” 

“This small change does nothing to change the abortion time limit, the grounds for abortion, or the restrictions on doctors. All it does is prevent desperate and vulnerable women being arrested, charged, and – yes, in England and Wales even thrown in jail – for ending their own pregnancy. Fifty countries around the world already have this law – we will now be one of them.”

It has also been pointed out that the ‘abortion up to birth’ line has come from and been spread by groups like the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, Christian Action Research and Education, and Right to Life, groups which seek to ban abortion outright. 

In reality, abortions performed at or after 20 weeks are incredibly rare, representing between 1-2% in England and Wales. Analysis from BPAS has found that one in three women seeking an abortion after 20 weeks do so because there is a serious problem with the development of the foetus, often during the course of a pregnancy that was wanted. 

The most recent statistics from 2023 found that nearly 99% of abortions take place before 20 weeks, with 90% happening within the first ten.

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US Influence

The debate surrounding women’s rights and the right to an abortion are taking place in an increasingly politicised context, with British conservatives increasingly being influenced by and importing talking points from hardline forces on the Christian Right in the US, currently engaged in attacking the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, and migrants. 

Analysis from Amnesty International, mapping the influence and finances of 65 anti-rights groups operating in the UK has found that, between 2019 and 2023, they increased their spending by 33%, to £106 million. This includes 25 anti-abortion organisations, as well as ultra-conservative Christian pressure groups, many of which are offshoots of US organisations. 

Investigations have also found that US-based entities, including the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – which defends buffer-zone protestors – and 40 Days For Life, are influencing a new wave of anti-abortion activism in the UK, especially among young people. Financial support for the UK wing of the ADF alone, which played a pivotal role in overturning Roe V Wade in the US, has jumped 300% in the last five years. 

As reported by Byline Times, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage has previously teamed up with the ADF, having appeared on the groups literature bemoaning the “crackdown on free expression within the UK”. 

A recent New York Times investigation found that the ADF’s UK wing had orchestrated an appearance by Farage before Congress, where he gave his case against what he perceived as growing censorship in the UK. The group reportedly also brokered a secret meeting between Reform’s leader and State Department officials. 

Farage has previously expressed that it is ‘utterly ludicrous’ to allow abortion up to 24 weeks, and that the law is “totally out-of-date”. Abortion Rights UK has recently warned that Reform UK is ‘fast becoming the political refuge for anti-abortion hardliners’, and that “a growing number of ex-MPs with long records of opposing women’s rights are finding a home in a party that calls itself “pro-family” and proudly embraces anti-choice politics.”

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The Real Story

Central to this debate, campaigners argue, must be the women placed in the often traumatic position of seeking an abortion. Doctors for Choice explain that “These women are often vulnerable, and the stories of their investigations are harrowing and dystopian. This week’s vote is a huge step forward in acknowledging that abortion is healthcare, not a crime, and a victory for common sense and compassion.” 

“Doctors for Choice UK as well as major medical bodies are campaigning for full decriminalisation of abortion, and look forward to legislative reform that removes abortion from the criminal statute, and finally regulates it like any other essential healthcare.”

Clarke, speaking on behalf of BPAS, added: “What we have seen is anti-abortion organisations shouting their claims without evidence, being amplified by the worst aspects of social media, and relying on people in power not to check their facts before sharing their outrage.”

“Politicians and others in public life need to do better than simply parroting the lines that come to them from the most rabid of anti-abortion organisations  – the rights of British women rely on them.”