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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.
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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.
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’.
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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.”