Crime and Policing Bill

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

I rise to speak against new clauses 1 and 20, which represent rushed changes to our abortion laws of profound consequence not only for the unborn child, but for women themselves. My fear is that, if passed, these new clauses would undermine the ability to prosecute abusive partners who force women into ending a pregnancy, inadvertently lead to more dangerous and highly distressing at-home abortions, and risk reducing the status of an unborn child to a legal non-entity.

I also wish to put on record my deep unease about the continued attempts to lasso unrelated legislation with amendments on abortion. Whether or not one supports liberalisation, we should all be able to agree that these amendments represent substantial change to the existing law.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I am afraid the hon. Member is not stating what my new clause would actually do. It takes women out of the criminal justice system, and this is the Crime and Policing Bill.

[Julia Lopez]

I was also expressing my concerns about other amendments that have been tabled, but I believe the hon. Member is none the less proposing a substantial change that deserves more than a two-hour debate among Back Benchers.

As MPs, we are not here simply to express our opinions of an ideal world or even to focus only on highly distressing cases; we are legislators, and no greater legislative duty exists than to make sure that what we do in this House does not lead to unintended consequences in the real world for the most vulnerable. In two hours of debate on a Tuesday afternoon, we are being asked to rewrite a profound boundary in British law that protects the unborn child. That is not responsible lawmaking; it is a procedural ambush. It is telling that not even the promoters of decriminalisation in this House can agree on the form it should take. That ought to make each one of us pause, because it speaks to the challenge of moving beyond principle to real-world application.

It is worth our recalling previous efforts to amend Bills in this way and their consequences. The temporary pills-by-post scheme brought in during the crisis of the pandemic was made permanent by an amendment hooked, with little notice, on to an unrelated Bill, and what have we seen since? We have seen women accessing pills under false names and gestational dates, and taking them far beyond the recommended 10-week limit, and viable babies have been lost after late-term abortions. That is not women’s healthcare; it is legal and medical failure.

[Emily Darlington]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lola McEvoy]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Julia Lopez]

I am afraid there is simply not enough time.

That failure is now being used to justify the loosening of abortion laws still further due to a recent uptick in cases of women being investigated. I have looked carefully at the arguments being pushed for decriminalisation, and with those from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), I see that the bogeyman of the US right is back. Apparently, unless we agree to these amendments, evangelical religious groups paid for by US cash are going to start rolling back women’s reproductive rights in this country. This is utter nonsense. We are in the UK, and we have a very different and a more balanced national conversation. This is not pro or anti life. It is not extremist to want protections for viable babies, and it is not anti-women to say that coercion or dangerous self-medication should not be outside the reach of the law.

We also see the argument made that this is solely a woman’s health issue and nobody but she should have a say over what happens to her body, but that is to ignore a very inconvenient truth that has always stalked the abortion debate: this is not about one body; there are two bodies involved. Like it or not, this House has a duty to consider the rights of a woman against the safety and morality of aborting the unborn viable child without consequence. It is not extreme or anti-women to say that a baby matters too. I accept that new clause 1 does not decriminalise a doctor or third party carrying out an abortion outside existing time limits, but let us step back and ask why we have criminal law at all. It is not simply to punish, but to deter.

The former Justice Minister Laura Farris has expressed concerns that the challenge of prosecution for infanticide will become greater. She has also raised similar concerns about prosecuting coercive partners if the termination is no longer a criminal offence.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order.