Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Meyer]

455: Clause 191, page 223, line 11, leave out “and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929”

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 455 in my name seeks to preserve legal protection for unborn babies who could survive outside the womb. Clause 191 would fully decriminalise abortions by stating that a woman would commit no offence in relation to her own pregnancy. In doing so, it would disapply not only Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 but the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. This is a serious change. Much of the attention has focused on the 1861 Act, with less attention given to the removal of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, which protects viable unborn babies. When the 1929 Act was passed, viability was understood to be around 28 weeks. Today, it is generally around 24 weeks, but medical advances mean that some babies can survive from around 22 weeks. Our abortion law recognises viability, and this is precisely why there is a time limit.

Clause 191 would remove protections where the death of a viable baby was caused by the mother, meaning that even a full-term baby could be aborted by the mother with no legal consequences. A baby’s protection would then depend not on whether it could survive independently but on who ended its life. This cannot be right. Under the current law, a woman at 32 weeks’ pregnancy—when a baby is fully formed—who contacts an abortion service may receive support, counselling or discuss adoption, but an abortion cannot be performed. Under Clause 191, however, she could obtain pills and end her own pregnancy without breaking the law. The consequence is clear: no prosecution at any stage, for any reason, even when a baby is capable of being born alive. That would overturn the careful balance Parliament has maintained for decades.

My amendment is deliberately modest. It allows the disapplication of Sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Act but retains the 1929 Act so that the deliberate destruction of a viable unborn child remains an offence. This is not about reopening the wider abortion debate; it is about ensuring that viable babies do not lose their legal protection rights.

There are also practical concerns. Abortion pills are easily obtained and sometimes used dangerously late in pregnancy. Removing all criminal liability removes an important safeguard and may leave coercion and abuse undiscovered. Judges already exercise compassion in the very small number of cases that come before the courts. Clause 191 goes far beyond that by removing accountability altogether. The current law strikes a balance: abortion is permitted up to 24 weeks, and beyond that, only in exceptional circumstances. Removing all limits is to cross a line. Close to birth, the difference between a foetus and a newborn may be a matter of hours, yet one would be fully protected in law, while the other could lawfully be destroyed. We do not allow infanticides of newborn babies, so why should the law treat a full-term unborn baby differently?

This proposal was not in the manifesto and has had no public consultation. Such a profound change deserves scrutiny. Public support for abortion up to full term is very limited, while support for protection after viability is strong.

I do not oppose abortion in all circumstances, but diluting the already limited protection for viable unborn babies is just a step too far. Without limits backed by meaningful legal deterrent, women may come under pressure to terminate pregnancy late in their terms, sometimes against their own wishes or consent. Clause 191 may also facilitate disability-selective abortion and sex-selective abortion, placing unborn girls at particular risk. For that reason, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, to prevent sex-selective abortions, which already exist in this country.

The noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, has tabled an amendment to remove Clause 191 altogether, and I hope it will command wide support. My amendment sits alongside it and ensures that this Committee focuses clearly on what Clause 191 really does and on the rights of viable babies. If we cannot protect children at the very beginning of life, when they are at their most vulnerable, what credibility do we have when we claim to put children first? I therefore urge the Committee to reject the clause. I beg to move.

[Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose Clause 191 standing part of the Bill.

Our role as parliamentarians, especially in this House, is to ensure that laws that make it on to the statute book are safe. Good laws require careful thought and prior consideration regarding any unintended consequences. Clause 191 fails to meet these criteria and should not become law. It was hastily added to an unrelated Bill and concerns a proposal that was neither a government manifesto commitment, nor called for by the public, nor subject to even rudimentary scrutiny.

Let me be clear: the law change proposed by Clause 191 does not relate primarily to one’s views on abortion, on which there will be a range of perspectives in this House. The abortion debate is often presented as pitting the rights of a woman against the rights of an unborn child at varying stages of development. It is not accidental that the legal limit for abortion is 24 weeks. That marks roughly the stage at which the baby is fully viable when born. This clause not only fails even to consider that person but would endanger the mother.

Laws exist for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, they exist to deter us from doing things that would cause significant harm to ourselves or others, out of motives that may be devious or simply desperate. The current law prohibiting women from performing their own abortions after 24 weeks is one such law. The existing legal deterrent protects women. For example, if a partner seeks to pressure a woman into an abortion beyond the 24-week limit, a limit which I note is already double that common in most European countries, a woman can currently point to the criminal law as a reason for not doing so. Removing this would make it much harder for vulnerable women to resist such pressure and would be particularly troubling given the dangers of unsupervised self-induced abortions later in pregnancy.

There is a supreme irony that those who claim to support legal abortion on the basis that the alternative would be unsafe—illegal abortions—are now proposing that women can perform such illegal abortions, outside the terms of the Abortion Act, in an unsafe environment. This law change would, in effect, reintroduce back-street abortion, as women would not be able to have terminations in a clinic beyond the 24-week limit but could do so at home, on their own, without the prospect of any subsequent investigation, using pills not designed for use outside of a clinical context beyond 10 weeks. The potential consequences are terrifying.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am saying that this amendment as drafted would criminalise those who receive that drug by post if they are using it for some purpose other than abortion. It may also be helpful for your Lordships to be aware that this amendment as drafted would make it an offence for a business such as a pharmacy or an abortion clinic to receive these drugs by post.

On Amendment 461G, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, your Lordships may wish to note that not all the information required under this amendment may be readily available. For example, it may not exist, it might require additional collection, or it may be held across different systems. It is unclear how there could be an accurate estimate of those who have illegally acquired abortifacients or the data that this estimate would be based on. Producing this annual report would therefore require the Ministry of Justice and other public bodies to take on additional responsibilities with associated costs.

On Amendment 461F in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, the Government remain neutral on changing the criminal law related to abortion, but it is important to note that Clause 191 does not decriminalise other offences such as manslaughter, murder or infanticide. These offences will continue to be investigated and prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service where the legal test is met. In addition, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are operationally independent of government, and it would therefore not be appropriate for a Secretary of State to issue guidance. Similarly, the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council are also responsible for guidance on investigations for policing.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 461J, tabled by my noble friend Lady Thornton. It is important to note that a pardon does not quash a conviction or a caution; what it does is remove the legal consequences that would otherwise attach to it. As with any pardon or expungement scheme, consideration would need to be given to how such a scheme would operate in practice; for example, how those individuals would be identified. There is no single centrally held record of all cases that may fall within scope of this amendment, so it has implications for how and when the duty to direct deletion would be triggered.

In addition, given the breadth of the amendment, which extends to any record of an arrest or investigation, the scale of the records potentially in scope is uncertain. Also, because the amendment is not time-limited, it would thus apply to dead women as well. Taken together, these factors may mean that implementing such a duty as drafted would carry substantial operational and resource implications for policing, His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service and those responsible for maintaining national databases. The scale of the work required cannot be reliably estimated at this stage but it could be considerable.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken today. I particularly welcome and support the speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Monckton, Lady O’Loan and Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, and so many others who spoke so eloquently and passionately.

It has been a very useful debate, which also highlighted how little scrutiny Clause 191 has received and how significant its potential effects could be—legally, socially and morally. At times, the debate revealed that we were speaking at cross-purposes: balancing the rights of women and the rights or non-rights of viable babies; balancing the rights of vulnerable women versus those who abort for personal or blunt, selfish reasons. We have all heard of women who aborted their child because they were afraid that a pregnancy would ruin their figure.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, hit the nail on the head. If I may paraphrase badly, it went something like this: Clause 191 risks decriminalising abortions undertaken for personal reasons while failing to guarantee the protection of women who have been a victim of abuse or coercion. This is an issue of such importance that I feel it merits much further consideration and, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, highlighted, ultimately it should not be part of the Bill.

I personally remain concerned that Clause 191 could have tragic unintended consequences both for women and for babies able to survive outside the womb. I do not see this as a right to abort, but rather how we as legislators can better protect the vulnerable—vulnerable women and the unborn child. This is why I continue to support the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, in proposing that this clause should not stand part of the Bill. But, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 455 withdrawn.